Wooden Beehives

Wood is still the default material, and not out of habit: it is the one that can be repaired, the one that takes any spare part and the one bees propolise and adopt without reservation.

What really sets a wooden hive apart

• It can be fixed. An open corner gets nailed, a rotten floor gets replaced, a warped box gets planed. In polystyrene, a hard knock is the end of the part.
• It insulates by thickness. Not as much as polystyrene, but it regulates humidity better because it breathes. In damp areas that counts for more than a few degrees.
• It is heavy. That is its real drawback. A loaded wooden Dadant on a migratory move is felt, and it is the reason some people switch to polystyrene.

Timbers and finishes

Most of the catalogue is pine, with finishes from untreated to painted. And there are models in cryptomeria, a lighter conifer that is naturally more resistant to damp, costs a little more and pays off in an Atlantic climate.

If you buy unpainted, paint it yourself on the outside only — never inside — with a suitable water-based paint and let it air before putting bees in. And go round the joints: that is where water gets in and where a box that could last twenty years starts to rot.

Complete or brood chamber only

There are models without a super, brood chamber only — cheaper and enough if you are going to build up rather than harvest that first year — and complete ones with their super. For fixed-comb there are 8-frame shallow supers from €19.50.

The comparison between systems, with measurements and volumes, is in hives.