Styrofoam vs Wooden Hives

[DonAsoka]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ things NEW. I attended the" Feria de Miel Andaluza" or the Andaluciian Honey Fair in Granada Spain a few weeks ago and a company from Finland had some lightweight, styrofoam like hives for sale.... saying they are very popular in Finland... how would you compare them to conventional wooden hives????????????????????????
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[Horns Pure Honey]

I have seen many people use them here in the states. They make it easier for the bees to cool and heat the hive becuase of its retaining abillity. I am going for wooden hives becuase we have many small honey loving critters around and I dont want to be picking up foam chunks of a destroyed hive. I guess these would be good if you lived in a sheltered space like in the city but there is still that chance of destrucktion. bye

[BigRog]

I'm betting you are going to get a ear full from Finman on this. He has used them and edoreses them wholeheartly. Use the search feature here and I'm sure you'll find some of his previous posts

[Horns Pure Honey]

We all have are own opinion, and my opinion is I wouldnt use them even with some of there good facts. Mostly this is due to I have lots of wild animals around here that love honey and we have REALLY bad hail storms here every summer in twister season. bye

[TwT]

I have a friend that has 2 of them and he said they have some advantages and some disadvantages. he like that if you break some peices off you can super glue them back on and they insulate good but he said they are not good for moving for pollination and some times the bees will eat through in places and make more entrances.

[Horns Pure Honey]

See, I dont want that hassel. I will need hives I can move alot and not worry about bumping it and it falling apart. bye

[Finman]

---- a company from Finland had some lightweight, styrofoam like hives for sale...._

Actually that foam hive is from Danmark.

I have used polystyre hives since 1988.

They are light to handle and frendly to back. When  moist wooden box weights  9 kg, polystyrene box is under 1 kg.  It is guite expencive, but it return money because colony raises very quickly at spring and it brings money back during first summer.  When I move hives from my home yard to better pastures, it is easy to lift those light boxes.

I started beekeeping 42 years ago with wooden boxes.  Now I have those wooden boxes for honey. Most of honey boxes are farrar measures.

In my opinion the bottom board must bee wood because it must be celaned quite often with gas fire.   I have made myself also roof and top cover, because polystyrene is expencive.

You can clean those boxes with machine wash dishes agent, or what it is.

http://www.swienty.com/engelsk/hives-nakka.html

I have just those nakka-hives since 1988.

In Finland langstroth box price is from 13 â,¬  to 11,5 â,¬  . Farrar is almost same price.  

In that site price is awfull  41 $ !!!!!  = 31 euros!!!!, almost three times that of  Finland. http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/product/insulated_bee_hive_body.html

Finnish delevering company http://www.hunajayhtyma.fi/hinnasto/index.htm

You can read " Langstroth, styrox" name and price in euros.

Here is another  . Price for Langstroth is 14 â,¬.
http://www.lahtisenvahavalimo.fi/P8230026.jpgteksti.jpg2.jpg.jpg

[ddbarnhizer]

---- a company from Finland had some lightweight, styrofoam like hives for sale...._

Actually that foam hive is from Danmark.

I have used polystyre hives since 1988.

They are light to handle and frendly to back. When  moist wooden box weights  9 kg, polystyrene box is under 1 kg.  It is guite expencive, but it return money because colony raises very quickly at spring and it brings money back during first summer.  When I move hives from my home yard to better pastures, it is easy to lift those light boxes.

Have you had any problems with bees chewing new entrances through the polystyrene?

[Finman]

Have you had any problems with bees chewing new entrances through the polystyrene?

They do not  make any holes through the styrene.

And they do not widden the lowest entrance.

I have finger sinze entrance in every box. When bees have hot, they widden entrange 2 -3 cm wide (thump size) . If you put  piece of rubber or plastic tube, they cannot bite the box. Also you can fix the box with syntetic material.


Oldest boxes are  16 years old, they they are OK.

If you have email, I send some photos.

First of all, styrene boxes are easy to handle. Mere honey in Langstroth box weights 25 kg.