Bees - polynuc's
Polynuc's
When I started beekeeping I began with 2 commercial cedar hives. I bought complete hives that included floors, brood body, 2 x supers, frames, queen excluder, crown board and roof. The packs cost about £350 each which wasn't cheap. I bought two more the following year. But then in the third year I had quite a number of false swarms and reproducing colonies. It just wasn't economical to keep buying cedar hives. Also, a false swarmed colony is about half the size of a full strength colony. So I switched to putting swarms in polynucs until they started to get established. The polynucs take the same size frames as the commercial hives (you can get them in all sizes to match the hives you have) so I can move strong colonies back into full size commercial hives as they establish.
Polynuc's have the advantage of being about a third of the price of a cedar have, but for all intents and purposes have the same components and fulfil the same roll.
Polynuc Brood Body
As you can see from the picture, the brood body on the polynuc is just the same open space as you would find on a cedar hive, except it will only accommodate 6 frames of brood.
Integrated Feeder
You can buy all sorts of different feeders for different hive types and feed types. I like the integrated feeders you get with polynucs for newly swarmed colonies as I find them efficient for feeding the new colony and encouraging it to establish.