New Beemax Hive

[Pond Creek Farm]

Our new beemax hive arrived today, and my sons and I are looking forward to putting it together this weekend.  We got two deeps and three medium supers.  We are considering putting a package in the deeps and using woodenware on top and another package into the mediums and putting wooden supers on them as well.  We have not decided on the moving to medium thing, so this might be a good way to toe dip.  We do not use excluders, so we always have a few mediums with brood in them anyway, and a few hives of medium brood chambers might give us a place to put mediums with brood.  We are looking forward to seeing how the beemax is different from wood.

[HAB]

Look forward to hearing about your experience with those new hives.  Don't forget to put up some pics.

[Robo]

Good luck with them Brian.  I was very skeptical about them, but had to try them and have really been impressed with them.   Although they ding easy, they are amazingly strong (and stay tight).  I have yet to break one, but I understand you just glue them back together and they are like new.  Mine stay about 10F warmer in the winter and use anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 less stores than the wooden counterparts.  They also build up much faster in the spring because of the heat.

rob...

[beemused]

I am trying several of the Beemax hives and also like them.  When gluing them together I found using a bungee cord with just a little tension around the circumference made the joints a little tighter. They find square on their own because of the dovetails with the large surface area. Takes longer to paint because of the recesses in the sides. I will probably add more to the operation this year.  Still prefer wood supers on them for harvesting because of the ding factor as Robo stated.

Bruce

[JP]

I use deep beemax for brood nest with wood medium supers, works well for me. There are def benefits with the beemax hives, the proof is in the pudding.


...JP

[Robo]

When gluing them together I found using a bungee cord with just a little tension around the circumference made the joints a little tighter. They find square on their own because of the dovetails with the large surface area.

Yes,  I do the same, but with 1" ratchet straps.

Takes longer to paint because of the recesses in the sides. I will probably add more to the operation this year. 

So very true,  painting is/was a real chore,  but I have gone to painting with an air sprayer and it is much quicker/easier especially when doing quantities of them

Still prefer wood supers on them for harvesting because of the ding factor as Robo stated.

I still use wood for supers as well, mainly due to the cost factor.  I can build my own mediums cheap and don't really care about the insulated value since they aren't used in the winter.  Of course dealing with covers can be a pain at times.

[Pond Creek Farm]

Boy the glue is a real mess!  I quickly learned that a small paintbrush is helpful, and a very small amount of glue is required.  I had it allover the place when I cinched down the straps which I used as a clamp.  That said, I can see that as a brood chamber, these things might be very effective. I am looking forward to installing a couple of our packages.

[Robo]

Boy the glue is a real mess!  I quickly learned that a small paintbrush is helpful, and a very small amount of glue is required.  I had it allover the place when I cinched down the straps which I used as a clamp. 

Oh ya, that too. I think I glued a couple of straps the first batch I did.

A little glue goes a long way....

[MacfromNS]

Has anyone try to make a  hive from insulation?

[Robo]

Has anyone try to make a  hive from insulation?

If your thinking about the blue or pink rigid board insulation, it is too soft and the bees chew through it.   The beemax hives are very dense and almost like rock.  I tried blue insulation board as an inner cover on my beemax hives last year and the bees chewed it all up.   This year I went with the foil covered board insulation and so far it is holding up well.   It might work if you where to make supers out of it,  but it would probably cost more and not be as strong as the beemax hives.

[DM]

My brother and I have 3 beemax hives and just put them together not using any glue. They have held up fine with no problems and are staying together just fine (Both deeps and mediums).

[BeeHopper]

My brother and I have 3 beemax hives and just put them together not using any glue. They have held up fine with no problems and are staying together just fine (Both deeps and mediums).

Same here