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laurmurf

BEEHAUS

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Has anyone seen the latest Omlet news??? :shock:

 

Omlet, the company behind the Eglu, will be launching the Beehaus in two weeks' time. It has spent 18 months developing the brightly coloured, plastic beehive. It will come in various colours including red, green, yellow and purple.

 

Johannes Paul, one of the team behind the new hive, said: "It looks like a little sort of moon lander and is almost insect-like. We think it will appeal to urban beekeepers as it is much more modern and contemporary than traditional hives."

 

Clearly aimed at capturing the "green pound" of eco-conscious Britons, a complete kit – including a beekeeping hat and protective suit – will cost £495. Mr Paul added: "The idea is to simplify things and make it all more accessible."

 

Egluntine.... Egluntine... Have you seen this? They were reading our minds!

 

Have split this from Bee chat, as I am sure it will get many replies Laurmurf - Christian :wink:

 

thanks, Christian - I was amazed it wasn't already all over the forum!

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I am still at the very beginning of my "bee-life" :wink:. I am planning my garden to accommodate lots of plants that are attractive to bees (at the moment it looks eerily similar to the surface of the moon, but I have a wildflower meadow, native hedgerows and lots of honeysuckle planned), and have been on an apiary visit. However, I don't imagine that I will be ready for the hive until at least 2 years from now.

 

So this is obviously a really (pre-)newbie question, but what are the advantages of a plastic hive? With chickens it makes the weekly clean a doddle (well, unless you do it in the rain - then the aubiose-like-stuff I use sticks to EVERYTHING...including me) - but what about hives?

 

And more importantly - WHERE CAN I SEE PHOTOS? :lol::lol::lol::lol:

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AAAAAAAAHHHhhhhhhh!

 

:dance::dance::dance:

 

We could call it the beelu or the lubee.

 

Already thinking of where we could keep it.

 

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHhhhhhhh!

 

Hubby is excited...I told the children at school a few months ago that we wanted to keep bees but the only thing stopping us was that we couldn't think of enough names.

 

:lol:

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I suppose the fact that the newsletter....which I didn't get an email notification of...is bee heavy could have given us an idea :roll: !

 

Will they have one at the New Forest Show do you think? That's in about 2 weeks.......must email & see if they have enough volunteers for that as it's a show I like to attend & if I can waffle chooks too I'd be (or should that bee :doh: ) in heaven :wink::lol: !

 

Sha x

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When I went on an apiary visit recently with my local group, we saw a hive that had some plastic frames in, they're used quite a bit in the US apparently but they fit Langstroths, not Nationals which most people here use. I have to say that the plastic frame that we saw didn't impress any of us, it was falling apart!

 

LaPoule, you ask what the advantages are - well, bees (like chickens :wink: ) are subject to a lot of diseases and pests, some of which can live in the wood of the hives - so the fact that these could presumably be power-washed or even dishwashed would be useful. Also, honey and propolis are very sticky - it would be much easier to keep clean. They'd also be insulated, waterproof etc - just like the Eglu, and I love the idea of the colours matching the Eglus!

 

Lots of questions arise though - what size will these be, will they take wooden frames and if so what size? It wouldn't be so easy to put in, say, a nuc of bees, if they're not in a standard frame. What about adding supers, queen excluders etc - everything has to fit ... you won't be able to use drawing-pins to attach a mouseguard ... oooh, I want to SEE one!

 

bought a budget (flatpack) hive and starter kit for about £275, the beesuit, smoker etc, could probably be sourced for about £75 so that's a heck of a lot of money for a hive. On the other hand ... it would last for ever, never need painting/treating and if you did get something nasty you wouldn't have to burn it, just turn the powerwasher on it.

 

Pictures, pictures please ...

 

PS Janty - don't you know that all bees are called Erica? Except the drones, which are called Eric .... :wink:

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Polystyrene hives have been around for a while now, and are widely used in the rest of Europe (not polystyrene like you get in packaging, more industrial density than that). Meant to be great. The big downside with polysyrene hives is that you can't sterlize them with a blowtorch - this is what most people do with wooden hives when buying second hand/a colony dies out /disease strikes. I guess same for a plastic hive.

I like my hives to look like a pile of old boxes, as that way you don't get passer-by attention the same... so tempting for schoolboys to throw stones at a hive and see what happens! But that wouldn't matter if they were in a back garden.

Though bees can cope fine with cold, it's damp that does them harm, so I guess a plastic design would need to be cleverly ventilated.

Dunno. I like my knackered old Smith hives, doubt that any manufacturer in their right mind would bring out a new innovation in such an old-fashioned sized hive though! What size will the Omlet hives be? National, I guess?

Beehaus = a play on Bauhaus, I guess?

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This is the most exciting news I've heard in a long time; they really are an entrepreneurial lot aren't they :D The price is pretty scary tho. I wonder if the frames will be interchangeable with traditional ones or whether all the consumables will have to come from Omlet as well. Waits impatiently.....

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It's really expensive in my opinion, and I'm wondering how they've done the frames for it out of plastic, as they must have been difficult to form.

 

One thing I'm annoyed about is that they say they're going to launch a yellow one, yet they won't reintroduce the yellow eglu, which is what I really want. :?

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Sorry, disagree STRONGLY with that! I think the Eglu and Cube compare very favourably with the price of wooden coops, and their longevity and high resale prices that really add to the value. I definitely don't put myself in the 'more money than sense' category .. if only! :wink:

 

It remains to be seen whether these factors will apply to the Beehaus though.

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Olly, please don't misunderstand me.

Chicken keeping used not to be a hobbyist pursuit by and large and chicken housing could be knocked together for a few pounds.

Given the cost of a Cube and our generally generous husbandry how much does our breakfast egg cost?

It doesn't matter because our chooks are pets, but they never used to be. That's my point.

I have a wooden Flyte coop simply because the Cube delivery time was too long for my needs, but I still covet one.

They are expensive to my mind if you are growing eggs simply to feed the family, but I would buy one simply because I can.

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Just done a bit of a costing with what little knowledge I have so far ( 2 mini courses :D) and tbh, I'd say it compares reasonably favorably. It depends what you get in the complete Beehaus package.

 

Approx prices of 'traditional' gear.

National Hive ~ £ 315 new.

Astronaut style Jacket and hood ~ £40

Smoker ~ £16

Leather gloves ~ £15

Assorted tools ~ £20

 

And that is just for starters

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I am really really interested in the package. My elderly music teacher has kept bees for years and is very interested to see how it will work and indeed if it will work. He has had problems over the last few years with bees disappearing but things are currently stable for him.

 

Don't like the name though :|

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I'm not convinced about the name either :? I think it sounds german.

 

I'd be really interested in seeing what they've done and how they've done it. I'm sure people had doubts about a plastic chicken house before they saw the eglu, but look where we all are now! :D

Dad mentioned getting some bees a while back, but Mom didn't like the sound of it! :lol:

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... But you can get 'seconds' hives much cheaper than the £315, Egluntine - depends on the quality of wood, whether they're flat-pack or made up etc.

 

I'm not knocking it - beehives are a bit like chicken-coops, you can't usually sell them on easily because of the risk of disease and so if this was something you could sterilise it would have a great resale value.

 

I actually rather like the name 'Beehaus'! I want to see it.

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I'm not convinced about the name either :? I think it sounds german.

 

As a wordplay on Bauhaus, I think it's a great name. The more I think about it, the more I like it. 8) Looking forward to finding out more about it.

 

I suppose Honeylu would have been an option, but I think Bauhaus/Beehaus is really apt. :D

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