Beginner beehive kits. What's out there and how do they compare?

hello Mr Ed here today is December the 15th 2022 yeah we are right there at Christmas and this video is going to be something on a little bit different of what I normally do because today what I'm going to be doing is showing comparisons and what I've got in all these boxes are from different manufacturers they sent me their beginner kits uh beehives and I had contacted some of them to see if they would be interested in making if I'd make a video on that and man I had four different companies sent me uh companies we had um The Galena Farm sent me some uh Vivo sent me some and Premier bees said this stuff so it's all it's all hot bodies and actually there's two of them that are beginners kids and what I'm going to do what I hope to do is kind of give a comparison of what's out there and then if you to show some of the variations and hives and options in hives and of course the price of it by the grace of God I might do a pretty good job on this and you might want to it might show you some things about some some different manufacture of beehives and give you an idea and they maybe help you in making a decision because in the last four weeks I probably had five or six phone calls asking me about beginner beehives and there's a lot of people coming in next year be a new year with bees and a lot of people have interest in it and to put your bees somewhere you have to put them in a hod now I'm focusing on the Lang straw that's that's what um those are the ones I use but it's not the only type of pot but for the purpose of this video it's just going to be Lang straw pods it's not the top bar or any other type of high that that hot box that you can imagine but for me on this one we're just doing the Lang straw so I'm gonna bring all this stuff in and I'll unbox this all the boxes and show you what you get in these kits let's get inside and start this video huh now I'm not I'm not gonna show like an unboxing where I just want to show the box that the package comes the The Hive comes in and what you can expect to see in it so let's go ahead and start [Music] [Music] foreign s from the vivore Hive start with the foundation we have the mediums the Deep foundations these are our deep boxes and we're running this there are two deep supers here and two shallow supers here all the frame components the tops the sides the bottoms they're all right there enough to do 40 frames inner cover the inner cover no I'm sorry this is the telescoping cover right here with a metal lid on it a solid bottom board with a reducer right there an inner cover [Music] and a queen excluder so these are all the components that you get in the hive kit High beginner kit that from Vivo there you go and I'll talk about the individual components of the construction and material all this after I get all these things built all right now the next one I'm going to unbox open up is from Busy Bee and this is sold by Galen farms and this one is Amish made we'll see how they do now I know on this one we don't have a big dinner kit and so you're not going to have so many parts and and I just saw that this one is actually [Music] already assembled all right let's see what they got like that it's painted too so this one is a painted one all right so we have 10 honey supers and 10 Deep supers and a deep and a medium box all right so that's from the Amish busy bees our next one is Hoover hives and this also is sold by Galen Farms and this one is a beginner's kit so I'm pretty sure it's got all the parts necessary for the two deep supers and a medium and all the other parts to hot well that thing is really heavy so there's a box in a box foreign [Music] begin with we have a telescope in the cover oh and the first thing that you're going to notice it's not painted this is wax coated and it's 100 beeswax coated really nice so telescope and cover inner cover okay so look at that huh oh that's a nice little detail my bottom board solid foreign we have our frames a hive reducer another high reducer our plastic foundations and these are wax coated as well they also send nails to assemble it with and there's a queen excluder in there as well let me move this box and we'll open up this one okay [Music] some more foundations oh this is this is the part for the Busy Bee so on the Busy Bee one I had a single deep super and I had a honey super and now this is the rest of the of the kit in there your inner cover a piece of plastic that slides in underneath our screen bottom board this is just to do mic checks and Beetle stuff that just goes right in there and then the other parts of the hive a telescope and cover and the rest of the parts of the hive these these parts are for The Busy Bee uh the Amish one and these are for the Hoover beat good all right let's put this on the side and then we'll open up the last one and here are our high components from Premier B products I'm imagine that this is already assembled but I don't know all right so yeah I need some size frame and Assemble d oh wow they sent me Bunches of Parts huh so we have a painted box and two unpainted boxes all right let me put all this stuff together and what I what I want to do now is I'm going to take a break right now and I'm going to assemble all of these high pieces that that you've got and then once I've got everybody assembled then I will go ahead and I'll talk individually about it and different aspects of the highs as far as how a box is constructed the joinery of the Box the um the way it's put together there's a number of ways of doing that there are a number of ways of doing that and as a woodworker I can appreciate certain joints as opposed to other certain joints and because there's more strength to them there's more surface area for glue there's different reasons why we prefer one joint over the other and on these three boxes that we have there's different joinery methods and for the V board box and for the Hoover box they use a full dovetail join now what is a dovetail join let me show you this is what a dovetail joint looks like on the side and this is the other side it looks like this and it's tapered cut the other way and what happens is that you can only put the that's what's really nice about this type of joint you can only put it together one way and to put it together you have to put it the right way the joint has to slide into the other joint you can't push it in this way it has to slide in from the top so this dub dubtail joint very very very very strong joint there's more glue surface on it more wood surface so that it can hold stronger and and the joint itself will hold the box together that's just one type of joint the the dovetail joint and let me show you what it looks like when you put it on on the bottom and this is what the joint looks like when it's attached you see there's this area right here it's rectangular shaped on one side of it and then on the other side it's diamond shape and so this pattern locks the wood into each other and again there's more surface area it's a stronger joint a much stronger joint now our next sample of joinery is from The Busy Bee for their joinery use a finger joint where the pieces the sides just go into each other and this method of joinery it's good it is good um but what I don't like about it is that there's so much exposure of end grain end grain is where the moisture where moisture can through capillary action can be absorbed into your box and so typically that's why you'll get Corner rot because this is where the water is absorbed in the end grain of the wood I'll grab the camera and I'll show you what it looks like when it's assembled so just like the dovetail joint on one side you have a rectangular shape a finger when you rotate the Box other than the top part where you have that Notch out it's also rectangular so it's the same there's nothing wrong with this joint nothing wrong at all other than in my opinion the amount of area right here that you can have capillary action to get moisture absorbed into your box now let's look at the third one which is the premiere High you will notice that on the front of The Hive you don't see any end grain showing on that none whatsoever and you there's Staples inside of it the other ones are screwed or nailed but this one is Staples but if you look on the side of their box look at this you have a dovetail joint so let me show you what this looks like and here's what the joinery looks like and what this kind of joint is called is a half blind dovetail and the reason they call it half line is because unlike the dovetail joints of the Hoover Hive and the vivar hive The Joint doesn't go all the way through now remember I said on these we have more glue surface area on these but on this on these we have even more glue surface area on these and what's really really great on these is because the end grain is covered at this part you only have this part of it exposed so you have very very little end grain exposed and you have an extremely extremely strong strong joint so those are the three different types of joinery that are used on these particular boxes and is one better than the other in my opinion yes but do the bees care no the bees don't care they don't they just want a nice box to live in but if if you're a particular about you joinery well you can you have options to choose when you select a a beehive that you want to do so I've still got a couple more of these high bodies to assemble and still lots of frames to put together so I'm gonna get back to that and when I finish that then I'll put everything together and show you what the what the hives look like once they're finished and here are our assembled beginner kit bee boxes and I I always because I'm The Woodworking guy I like to assemble you can you can get at least these two highs the Hoover and the Busy Bee you can you can purchase those options uh as fully assembled The vivore Hive is not fully assembled you have to assemble at least the hive bodies and the frames you have to assemble that but as a woodworker I don't mind putting together um the pieces to my bead boxes and plus I mean you could really make it like a family thing and you know have the kids why if everybody join in and build build help build the V box now one thing that that I noticed initially with with the Busy Bee box which is the Amish made one now that one it it I did get the box assembled because it it had the option being painted and if it's painted it's going to be assembled but one thing I do like about the this particular box is that when they assemble it they don't use nails they use screws and and I always think a screw is way better than a nail but that's just me and so the boxes are all assembled with screws everything is assembled with screws the telescope and cover and even I believe even the the bottom board was built like that way as well so let me show you what you get when you when you purchase the Busy Bee and that that's from Galena farms and in the Box they had a couple of goodies in there they had a a 10 off coupon in there as well as a a bottle of the tight Bond glue this is this great glue is really great because it's water resistant and it cleans up with water as well so it's a great glue to use to put it if you build it put in your joints and then on your frames as well so that count came with this one so let me first show you with the inner cover the telescoping cover I'm sorry and it's really really well constructed um box you got your joinery up into here just a box joint shiplap joint on that but it's all solid wood this is just a piece of plywood right here and then your metal covering really nice very nice the inner cover will be the next one another well-built piece of a bee hog again they employ the the like a shiplap joint right there to make their Corners not just a butt joint and then you can see right there it's all screwed and and glued I'm sure and they use a nice piece of blue one right here with a center in that and then as you go um the honey super right here again you can see that's not nailed it's screwed in there and they employ the finger joint construction on these boxes the frames you do have to assemble I would say when I was assembling these frames the same manufacturer must have um produced all these frames because all the frames were similar uh in in the way they looked this one right here is pretty nice one actually but I want to show you some of the difference that I have found in it between some of them now for the foundation for all of the frames on on the Busy Bee they use cell tech foundations which is um it's pretty good it's not it's not a bad one and it does come coated with beeswax which is really nice it's a good good feature to have because I've found in my experience if there's not a wax coating on the on the foundation the bees aren't going to draw it out so they use cell tech foundation on their frames and also included in the kit you get your Queen excluder and then in your both of your Brew supers they're they all have the frames which you have to build and again they're using the cell tech foundation and all this stuff is coated as well that's that's a really important feature right there that they're using wax covered foundation on that foreign let me show you the creamed bottom board this is this is a really nice little board they use because there's options you can get a solid bottom or screen bottom and this one there's that little piece of plastic that you can drop in there to close it close the weather from coming in and then you can also check to see if you got in mites in there that fall down in there and High beetles and that kind of stuff so really nice screen bottom board on this one so how much you're going to pay for the Busy Bee beginners kit now that one when you you can you can buy it assembled or unassembled and painted or unpainted I don't have the price for the the painted version of it but if it's unassembled it's 215 dollars and if it's assembled it is 279 dollars um there's there's they also sell all kinds of options um with the supers and just parts for the hive so but for a beginner's kit this one would be 215 dollars unassembled and unpainted now the next box that we're going to take a look at is sold by vivore I don't know who the manufacturer is on this box but it's sold by vivar and that's on Amazon sold product um and what you just go to Amazon and you're going to find Vivo it's spelled b-e-v-o-r and they sell several different configurations of the hives but the one that I chose for this demonstration consisted of the two deep boxes and the two mediums or honey super boxes as well so that was the kit that I chose to use on this one and the first thing I would note is that the construction what the box the hard bodies are built of and that is Cedar well I did forget to mention on the Busy Bee boxes they're made out of eastern white pine on on this box like I said it's built out of Cedar and Cedar is a really really great wood for bees I don't know why bees like it they like Cedar and so uh that that's like a plus in my book these Bob these boxes being built out of Cedar now this one they don't come finished and I would still recommend that they you have a finish of paint on on these things or wax but something on them but you know the fact that the RC is really nice in my book and when you get the box you get because it's unassembled and that's the only way this comes you get a really good description on how to assemble the hives and it's pretty straightforward on that now to begin with just their telescoping cover very nice again it's it's a cedar board Cedar constructed and then plywood on that and then galvanized for the for the metal top so it is that's pretty nice telescoping cover and you've got that joint right there for the the size it's not just a butt joint and like a ship joint shiplap joint very nice so telescope inner cover as well well built nothing wrong with that blue one and the boxes themselves now these the joints on these like we I said earlier these are Dove chair dovetail join full dovetail joint so it's a great joint the it does make the Assembly of this box very easy it's almost foolproof to do it you can only assemble it one way and it goes together very very nice the joints are cut very clean and it does assemble very easily and I used a two inch ring shank nail to put mine together with uh it it that's just what I use um there's all kinds of other Nails you can use but that's what I use to do it and the frames these are the frames now their foundations they don't tell you what kind of Foundations they are other than it's food grade plastic they do say that but what you will find when you see these foundations they do not have wax coatings on them and it is important that we do put a wax coating on this for our bees to draw it out that comb so that they don't have wax coating on on their foundations there brood boxes remember you get two mediums or honey supers with this kit you get the excluder queen excluder and then our brood boxes with with all the frames and again the foundations do not have wax they're not wax coated so you need to wax coat these foundations one thing I do notice on on these the handle grips this efficient but they are small they are small but they will work they will work and the bottom the bottom board which comes with a entrance reducer the bottom board is again Cedar with a piece of plywood and a piece of three quarter inch plywood now I don't know about you know how that that part is I prefer solid wood for my bottom boards when I build them like that but plywood it'll work it'll hold it'll hold out for a while that is the beaver hive and with that one since it's on Amazon at the Amazon Prime it it does have free shipping on that one and for for that high unassembled because that's the only way you're going to get it it's 172 dollars um and it's got all that stuff in it but it does have to you do have to um to build it I did forget to mention two on the on the Busy Bee one there is a nine dollar flat shipping rate on on that one as well and here is our next hard that we're going to be looking at and I'm telling you this is a beauty it really is and what's so noticeable about the Hoover hives is the finish on on these on these boxes and you can again get these boxes unassembled or assembled but the covering on them they use a beeswax coating on them it's not paint it's beeswax now I will tell you it's it's a covering they dip the the boxes all the parts in beeswax but it's unlike a wax dipping where they cook paraffin into the wax so this is just a covering the wax doesn't permeate into the wood itself it's just on the outside so you need to make that distinction but still is very very very nice finish on these and a nice waxy feel to these things very very appealing to the eye and to the hand so let me show you what you get in this one well first thing you get a little hive reducer you can close off your hive that way or reduce it this way they also have a entrance reducer on that as well and you get a nice Bag of Nails to assemble your your body's ripped so that's oh yes and a construction kit as well of course there are telescoping cover very nice man everything is look how pretty even the inside of that covered so the other ones had plot luon in their Plywood And this is solid wood all of this solid wood very nice very nice but it feels heavy heavy the inner cover again wax coated wax coated Olive this is all wax coated all of this is beeswax coating and then down into our boxes first thing you notice is the dovetail construction on on the box and again because these are unassembled this one was a little bit hard harder to assemble because I had to clean out all of the joints because there's so much wax in there when you're trying to assemble it it just it's it's too much it it closes the joint up too much and you don't get good closure with your joints so you have to clean all the wax off the joints in other words to to be able to get the boxes to come together but clean off the wax and they go right together really simple and these are just again use that two inch ring shank galvanized nail to assemble mine I didn't use the nails that they provided I like my my ring Nails because it it grips a little bit better in my opinion there frames very nice frames or pine frames and they use the cell tech foundation on there as well and these are all coated with with beeswax as well very nice this is really a really great option right here 's your excluder and again your frames that cell tech foundation and all of it is covered with beeswax and get down to the bottom show you their bottom a solid bottom board and it's solid wood and it's all beeswax coated man this is really really really nice a very nice pretty very very pretty box to look at so what are you going to pay for this really really pretty nice looking box that's what everybody be thinking no I would be so again it's sold by Galena Farms just like the Busy Bee One Soul by Galena farms and this one just like the Busy Bee has a nine dollar flat shipping rate on on this one as well and if you buy the hod the way that I got it unassembled it's a hundred and ninety nine dollars and if you buy it fully assembled it's 279 dollars all right so I got one more thing to show you about the the pure boxes it's not a kit but there's something about this one that I want to show you about now this this high body made by pure it's the premier bee supply builds this thing they don't offer this box in in a beginner's kit however I want to include this in this comparison primarily because the way they build their boxes what I was interested in when I first started this thing was a construction of boxes and and I wanted to show the the difference between the dovetail and the finger joint and the pure hives they've come out with almost a cabinet grade joinery and like I've talked about before that half line half-line dovetail and it's just such a a really great strong joint and I I've already talked about the good things the qualities I think but it it's just uh a really great design of a box for for joinery of a bee box or any box and as as a woodworker it really does appeal to me but some of the other features that are really nice on these boxes um their handles they're larger than most of them they're almost an inch larger and there there's their design is that comes smooth from the bottom up to the top whereas the other ones are like backwards to this one and also their Corners because the way they do their frame rests you have in this area right here you have a full width of wood right in there so you have less chance of damaging your your Corners right here and so that's another really nice feature about these boxes as well as they're they're built out of um eastern white pine really good grade of wood now these this company is a fledgling company they they may have been um open for maybe only about five years they've been doing this and they started out building frames and that's that's another thing that I want to talk to you about because earlier I talked about frames and so I want to do a little comparison on frames because not all frames are the same and the frames that premiere builds are quite noticeable from the frames that I've showed you earlier and just from beginning you can see that that the width of that top bar is slightly wider than that as well as let me show you this the length is also a tiny bit the length is also a tiny bit longer now here is a top bar from one of those other frames and like I said these these frames all have to be made by the same manufacturer they use it is a white pine but the grade of material is not as good as the grade material that these people use that that Premier use and look you can see right away a difference in the thickness of the top bar let's see if I can get that on there to show you if I flush it up to the back if I flush it up to the back of the top bar you can see that it's almost well it's better than a sixteenth of an inch wider than this one right here and it goes for the Bottom bar as well and so what that does it gives you a tighter fit your foundation gives you a tighter fit and that's the other thing about Premiere because they like I said they got into the market with frames building frames and Foundations and they have a very unique system of their foundations all they they come up with a cell design a pattern for the cell design where it's more efficient and they they're what is really um good about these frames is that all of these frames they coat them with wax with the wax from the cappings instead of just like old brood comb or just any General Wax they use wax cappings and I think it came from comes from the Myers company that they sell them the cappings that they then render and spray onto these frames so the frames are really good there is a difference in frames just like there's a difference in box construction and Premier does sell boxes and they are going to get into the production of of hard Parts as well telescoping covers inner covers bottom boards they are going to get into that as well but like I said they're still fledgling and they they haven't um arrived at that point yet but they do sell um boxes with frames let's see they sell a deep unpainted super with 10 frames in it for 67 or if you just want to buy a box it's uh 25 and that's unassembled and the the quality of this of these boxes it's it's it's almost like craftsman style stuff I mean they really they really do a great job on on the joinery on this stuff as well as their their detail to features on this so that's about all I have for all of these things I certainly hope that the material that I presented will help particularly beginning new beekeepers in making an informed Choice when they choose to decide to to purchase a beginner's beehot kit I've given three options here that are pretty much diverse there's different choices that you choose from but primarily I want to inform you there's a lot of choices you can make and though these three that I presented here are just a small amount of them at least I think they can get you started into thinking on how you want to proceed in purchasing your first beehive and as far as the older beekeepers people have been beekeeping for a year there's also the idea of showing you that there there are products out there that that can help you as well and I believe include in the description of the video links to all of these companies websites where you can then go to them and invest investigate further on your own because I'm sure that if you go look for yourself you'll be able to find a lot more information than what I presented so I have to really thank all the companies that that help make this video possible Premier bees for supplying the purer Galena farms for supplying the the Hoover hives as well as the busy beehives and for vivar for supplying the the this Hive right here so that's about all I have on you for this one so thanks for watching keep on watching and I'll be making more God bless Mr red I'm out of here and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to y'all God bless bye-bye [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Jeff Horchoff Bees

Views: 48,377

Keywords: Beginner beehive kits. What's out there and how do they compare?, Vevor bee hives, Galena Farms, Hoover Hives, Busy Bees, galena farms bee hives, galena farms bee, galena farms reviews, Premier Bee Products, Puracell foundation, Pura Bee Hives, dovetail joint, finger joint, half blind dove tail joint, Beginner bee hive kits, bee hive boxes, wooden frames for a bee hive, plastic foundation for bee hive frames, queen excluders for bees, hive entrance reducers, Jeff Horchoff

Id: 5pR2WuP4NuQ

Length: 42min 27sec (2547 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 23 2022