FSC Premium Cedar National Beehive
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Description
When you choose an FSC Western Red Cedar beehive, you’re not just choosing to look after the bees in your local area, you’re choosing to look after nature all around the world. Having the label of FSC certified wood reassures you that the forests the Cedar wood came from are sustainable, making your beehive as environmentally friendly as possible.
Some of the main things you should look for in a beehive are durability, ease of use, and popular with bees. Our FSC Cedar beehives have all of this and more. Canadian Western Red Cedar is higher quality than other Cedars with fewer knots and greater density, resulting in increased strength, durability, and enhanced resilience against the fluctuating British weather. Full of natural oils, your hive will be better protected against bug infestations, rotting, and warping. But these natural oils also smell amazing, making Cedar beehives attractive to both humans and bees.
The brood box and 2 supers (with metal runners) creates plenty of room for your queen to lay her eggs and for your worker bees to store their honey. Complete with metal queen excluder, you’ll be able to access and collect the honey without killing off your colony, ensuring years of successful beekeeping. And you can protect your hive when it’s at its most vulnerable from wasps, hornets, and other bees by using the entrance reducer with 2 width sizes.
Get everything in one easy bundle by including the frames and foundations in your purchase.
Box Contents
Shipping & Returns
Shipping
Free UK delivery when you spend over £100. For orders less than £100, delivery is £4.99. All orders are processed within 1-2 working days. Orders are not shipped or delivered on Sundays or public holidays. Orders can occasionally be delivered on Saturdays, depending on your local DPD depots shipment volumes.
For more information, head over to our Shipping Policy page.
Returns
If you’re unhappy with your purchase, you have 30 days after receiving your item to request a return. To be eligible for a return, your item must be in the same condition that you received it, unworn or unused, with tags, and in its original packaging. You’ll also need the receipt or proof of purchase. Returns are sent at your own expense and through a service of your own choosing.
To start a return, head over to our Refund Policy page.
Crown board with 2 bee escapes
The crown board is a layer of cedar wood that fits between the upper super and the hive roof. With 2 holes cut out in the wood, the crown board is handy for providing your bees with some extra food during winter or when you’re starting the hive. These holes can also be used to get a sneak peek at how your bees are doing with minimal disturbance to the colony.
Our crown boards also come with 2 porter bee escapes which slot perfectly into the 2 holes in your crown board.
2 super boxes
At Hiveology, our hives are made up of 2 supers with room for 10 frames in each. With this amount of space, your bees have all the room they need to do their magic. And double the number of supers means double the amount of delicious honey for you.
Plastic queen excluder
Our FSC Western Red Cedar hives come with a high-quality steel metal queen excluder, ensuring you can harvest your honey without destroying your colony. The queen excluder is placed between the brood box and the lower super and due to the size of the holes, the queen is excluded from going into the supers (as the name suggests).
The metal material of the queen excluder ensures less plastic is used, making the hive more environmentally friendly whilst protecting the future of your colony.
As well as the metal queen excluder, this hive also comes with metal runners.
Brood box
Our brood box fits 10 frames. This is the perfect amount of room for your queen bee to do her royal duty of laying eggs and growing the colony. With the queen’s eggs towards the centre of the brood box, there is plenty of room left on the outer frames for your bees to build up a honey reserve to feed themselves.
Metal mesh floor and inspection tray
The bottom of our hives are made up of a metal mesh floor and a built-in steel metal inspection tray. Having a mesh floor rather than a solid floor means you get better ventilation in your hive, limiting moisture that can be damaging to your bees and hive.
Another benefit is that it’s better at tackling the increasing problem of varroa. With a mesh floor, the varroa falls through the mesh rather than onto a solid floor which allows them to climb back up and feast on the bee larvae. The pull-out metal inspection tray is also handy as it allows you to monitor the amount of varroa (if any) falling out of your hive.
At Hiveology, we always choose Canadian Western Red Cedar over British Cedar. Why?
British Cedar tends to be more consistent with its paler colour. However, the speed in which the wood grows means it has an open grain, large gaps between growth rings, and many knots. This makes the wood less durable and more susceptible to warping and other issues in the long term. Canadian Western Red Cedar tends to come in darker colours and grows slower, giving it a tighter grain, a higher concentration of natural oils, minimal knots, and close growth rings. All of this makes Canadian Cedar very durable and stable as well as promoting longevity and resistance to decay, splitting, and warping.
FSC Certified Wood
Care for nature all around the world with FSC certified wood. Protect your local bees while socially, economically, and environmentally protecting the forests and supporting the local communities that grow and work with the wood that makes up your beehive.
Free Delivery over £100
If your order is over £100 and you're ordering to a UK mainland address, you’ll qualify for free standard delivery. This excludes the Scottish highlands and UK islands like the Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, and Northern Ireland.
Tree Planting and Rewilding
At Hiveology, we’re passionate about giving back to nature and protecting the future of the planet. That’s why we dedicate a portion of our profits to Mossy Earth, supporting their tree-planting and rewilding initiatives both here in the UK and around the world.
Our customer reviews
Wood Options
Fir
Fir has non-porous, tight close-grain lines making it a strong wood with weather-resistant properties.
Pine
A commonly used stable wood with a clear, straight and tight wood grain, providing great insulation.
Cedar
Full of natural oils ensuring the wood is durable, long lasting, and has a beautiful look and smell.
Our Mission
Empowering Beekeepers
We want to ensure that you have the equipment and knowledge you need to get the most out of caring for your bees. Whether you’re wanting to start a rewarding new hobby, continue a generational legacy of beekeeping, or you’re looking to create a business selling bee-products, the beekeeping community is ready to welcome you.
Nurturing Bees
Bees are under threat. Climate change, pesticide use, and loss of habitats (to name just a few) are causing a decline in bee populations. Beekeeping provides shelter, a safe nesting area, and (preferably) good access to a safe water source and nectar-rich, chemical-free plants, allowing bee health to improve and populations to thrive.
Preserving Nature
Many plants rely on bees for survival with many animal species relying on these bee-pollinated plants for their own survival (including humans). So caring for bees is so much more than just preserving nature locally. Caring for bees is essential for preventing an environmental collapse and the extinction of many species of plants and animals.
FAQs
What size is a Hiveology hive?
Our Hiveology national hives have the following measurements:
H 65cm x W 46cm x D 46cm
How will my order be delivered?
Our hives are delivered by courier using the Yodel delivery service and are usually delivered within 3-4 working days.
Is the hive delivered assembled or flat-packed?
Hiveology hives come flat-packed for easy transportation and delivery. The hive is then easy to assemble at home by following the digital instructions on our website.
Do I need a big garden?
No. As long as you have an outdoor space that’s big enough to accommodate the hive and space around the hive for easy harvesting and for bees to enter and exit the hive, you can place it in any outdoor space. From large countryside estates to city centre balconies and roof terraces and everything in between, if you have an outdoor space, you can have a beehive.
Do I need to paint or stain my hive?
It isn’t essential for your hive to be painted, but if you want to keep it in top condition for as long as possible, it’s a good idea to provide it with some protection. If you do decide to paint your hive, only paint the outside of the hive as the bees will protect the inside.
When considering painting your hive, it might be useful to consider the type of wood it’s made from. Cedar wood are naturally weather-resistant. Therefore, cedar hives are less likely to need painting, especially in their first few years. However, over time, painting the hive might be useful to restore the wood quality. On the other hand, fir and pine wood is less weather-resistant, meaning it should be painted to protect it from the elements.
What colour to paint your hive is up to you. You could use a stain to keep it natural, paint it in colours to blend it into its surroundings, or you could get creative and paint your hive in bright colours, with a pretty pattern, or an intricate design. However, when choosing your hive colour, it’s important to remember that the colour you choose will affect the temperature of the hive. To keep the hive cool during the summer, paint it in light colours. On the other hand, if your summers don’t get very warm, using darker colours will help to keep your hive warmer.
What are the different parts of the hive for?
Hiveology hives have everything you need to create a productive, safe, and homely environment for your bees. But what parts make up the hive and why are they needed?
Roof
This is the top section of the hive that protects it from the weather. Hiveology hives have flat wooden roofs with weather-resistant metal covers.
Crown board
The crown board is a thin layer of wood with a couple of holes. This section of the beehive can serve multiple purposes including providing a cover for the frames and making it easy to feed the bees.
Supers
Supers are where the delicious magic happens. Housing the frames and foundation sheets, bees store their honey in the supers. At Hiveology, our hives are made up of 2 supers with 11 frames and 11 foundation sheets in each, creating plenty of space for your bees to buzz up some tasty fresh honey.
Queen excluder
This part of the hive allows worker bees into the supers to produce honey. However, due to their size, the queen bee cannot pass through the queen excluder. This ensures that the queen lays her eggs in the brood box instead of the supers. Before the development of the queen excluder, harvesting honey would destroy the eggs that were laid in the same frame, ultimately damaging the size of the bee colony. Therefore, the queen excluder is an important part of the hive to ensure the bee colony is well-maintained and healthy while still allowing for the harvesting of honey.
Brood box
The queen excluder keeps the queen bee in the brood box where she lays her eggs and the larvae are reared. Like the supers, our brood boxes include 11 frames and 11 foundation sheets but these frames will have eggs towards the centre of the hive and honey towards the outer frames. However, this area is purely for housing the brood, meaning the honey stored here will not be harvested.
Floor
The floor of beehives can be made from solid wood or mesh. Hiveology hives have mesh floors which are better for ventilation and tackling the increasing problem of varroa. When varroa fall out of the brood box frames, a mesh floor means they fall out of the hive rather than a solid floor which allows them to climb back up and feast on the bee larvae.
What is your returns policy?
We have a 30-day return policy, which means you have 30 days after receiving your item to request a return.
To be eligible for a return, your item must be in the same condition that you received it, unused, with tags, and in its original packaging. You’ll also need the receipt or proof of purchase.
To start a return, you can contact us at info@hiveology.org. Returns are sent at your own expense and through a service of your own choosing. Goods must be sent using a traceable service. Items sent back to us without first requesting a return will not be accepted.
If you have any questions about returning an item, just contact us at info@hiveology.org.
Damages and issues
Please inspect your order once you've received it and contact us immediately if the item is defective, damaged or if you've received the wrong item, so we can evaluate the issue and make it right.
Exceptions or non-returnable items
Unfortunately, we can't accept returns on sale items or gift cards. Please get in touch if you have questions or concerns about your specific item.
Exchanges
The fastest way to ensure you get what you want is to return the item you have, and once the return is accepted, make a separate purchase for the new item.
Refunds
We'll notify you once we’ve received and inspected your return, and let you know if the refund was approved or not. If approved, you’ll be automatically refunded on your original payment method. Please remember it can take some time for your bank or credit card company to process and post the refund too.