This year I have a new type of bee hive…Bee Box! It is a high density polystyrene unit. Modern Beekeeping USA was my supplier. I purchased the units at HAS and EAS this year. The assembly and painting were easy with the help of my husband, Chuck.
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I am using the nucs as 6 frame nuc boxes for my new queens. The last group of queens emerged on August 11th. The nucs were started with one frame of capped brood, a ton of adhering bees and the newly emerged queen. The feeder was placed on top with a 1:1 sugar syrup and the nucs were put off near the grape vines for wind protection.
The dense walls even out the temps between day and night and have allowed the bees the opportunity to build comb when the wooden nucs had slowed down a bit.
I checked on them yesterday and the nucs have been built out to 3 to 4 frames of drawn comb. They are building their bee numbers well and are very calm when you open the nuc. I like the designed feeder where I can remove the top of the nuc and fill the feeder without bothering the cluster. The little windows show the bees busy down below.
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The entrances are busy and the bees are hauling in pollen like crazy! You can smell a slight goldenrod odor still coming from the nucs…nice supplement.
Fall is a great time to be in the bee yard…
-Peggy
Peggy Garnes is a 15- year beekeeper, now raising and selling queens and nucs. She is the President of the Medina County Beekeepers Association, and the Advertising Manager for Bee Culture Magazine.
The vendor recommends painting the outside of the hives. This is to prevent UV deterioration and algae growth. So what prevents the algae growth on the inside of the hive?
the bees propolis the inside of the hive keeping it mold free and fresh smelling.
the bees prevent algae growth on the inside 🙂
We are in Florida and a wood hive lasts just a year before they start to rot. Our two hives are covered with duct-tape patches. If we don’t patch the holes we have horrible honey robbing problems. Replacing boxes each year is make this an expensive hobby. We are hoping this type of hive will work better for us. It can go from 96 degrees during the day down to 65 at night and we are hoping these will help with temp swings. In the winter we do get on dot two days with frost as well.
You might want to give this type of hive a try! Being styrene and painted with masonry paint they are durable to the weather but not the hive tool!