Oh well, I suppose it was inevitable...

Omlette, the company that brought the ridiculous Eglu chicken house have now come up with the Beehaus hive.

It sounds a lot like the Dartington long hive - basically a horizontal hive, like a top bar hive, but with 14x12" frames.




The Beehaus costs £465 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and you can also buy a starter kit with equipment (including "liquid smoke" - aka tepid water!!) and bees.

Well, if this gets a new generation of beekeepers going, particularly in cities, then I applaud it, but I am v. worried that bees are now availible at the click of a button. So now people can just buy bees without even knowing the name of "that mite thingy"!

The Beehaus kit includes "Beekeeping Guide: a complete guide to beekeeping packed with useful advice". I hope that those daft enough to spend £465 for a hive are not so daft as to read only this one unnamed book on beekeeping.

I think my dad summed it up perfectly just now when he grumbled very gloomily "at least they've gone for frames instead of bloody top bars."

Read the BBC article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8184655.stm

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If you do want to keep bees and are considering buying a Beehaus, my advice as a beekeeper with a few years experience is to go along to your local beekeeping association's next event and find out more there - most beekeepers will be happy to answer all your questions, and you might even be able to put on a suit and see inside a real working hive. Go to country fairs, bee auctions etc. where you can learn more about the equipment that every beekeeper needs. Visit the nearest Thorne's, the main beekeeping shop in the UK, and have a look at the stuff they sell (this year they've had a complete beginner's kit for an absolutely fabulous price - see http://www.thorne.co.uk/).

Most importantly, go on a course or find an experienced beekeeper who can act as your "buddy", and read up on all the diseases and pests that we're having problems with at the moment - beekeeping is no walk in the park, and requires even more dedication than keeping chickens becuase you can't just ask Mrs Next Door to pop over once or twice a day and and throw food at them!

Information is the most important thing you will need to start keeping bees. You also need to have had contact with bees, equipment and the beekeeping community before you buy - plenty of people think they really want to keep bees until they stung. You only know if you'll be able to keep bees once you've been engulfed in a buzzing, stinging, angry cloud of them! You also need to know that you'll be able to handle the equipment you're thinking of buying, e.g. I've always used 14x12" brood frames like in the Beehaus, but have now swapped for smaller ones becuase I find them very ungainly and too big and heavy. However, they might be perfect for you.

The best advice I can give you is try before you buy. If you decide that a horizontal hive like the Beehaus is for you (certainly they have advantages, e.g. less lifting) then go ahead, but you need to know about all different ways of keeping bees, and their price tags and consequences for the bees, before you make a choice.

Oh yeah, and get your bees locally and from a trusted beekeeper. Apart from the obvious problems with unknown stock (you don't know if they have a disease, what their temperament is like, etc. unless you can trust the person you're buying from) there are other problems you may come across, e.g. this year one of our friends ordered a five frame nuc from one guy and it never even arrived!

For more info on bees and beekeeping see the BBKA's website (http://www.britishbee.org.uk/). You might also want to look at the Basic syllabus (for beekeeping exams - not essential, but it's stuff that every beekeeper should know anyway - http://www.britishbee.org.uk/files/syllabuses/basic_all.pdf).