Abelo Beekeeping Equipment sell both National and Langstroth polystyrene hives. I believe they source them from Lyson in Poland. Unfortunately their current batch of National hive bodies have incorrect spacing between the frame sides and the walls, and between the boxes. As a result they’re not selling them from their site, but they are available on ebay at a much reduced BIN price. Every now and then they auction one and they usually go for around £30. At that price I thought I’d take a punt and see how the bees took to them as the bee space problems may not be insurmountable. The hive has now arrived and here’s what it looks like (complete with a few old frames in the brood chamber). I’ve not checked the spacings yet.
 Open Mesh Floor |
 OMF With Tray Inserted |
 Brood Chamber |
 Brood In Position |
 Supers |
 Supers In Place |
 Crown Board |
 Crown Board Vents Open |
 Full Hive |
How did u get on with these hives? Did u overcome the bee space problem? They are still being sold on ebay, i am interested, but like to hear your experience first
thanks
To be honest, I’m not sure I can comment at the moment. It’s been such an awful year weather-wise that I’ve not swapped as many colonies as expected into the poly hives and have instead used them as single national broods to house swarms (I’ve collected about a dozen this year!). The one thing I have noticed is that the yellow paint used on some of them seems to be unstable (or perhaps I just got a dodgy batch) and on the roof it has peeled off. I’ll have to repaint those at some point.