Excellent video, I currently run 23 Apimaye hives as an experiment that I have done for the last couple of years. I run 10 frames in all of them and as long as you keep the propolis cleaned up you can get your frames in and out with not too much trouble or loss of bees. The first year I ran them I lost all 23 colonies in them due to the feeders. I'm in Northwestern Massachusetts and our winners can be pretty cold. What I had happened was on warmer days the bees would break cluster to go into the feeders to get to the mountain camp sugar. As the temperature would start to drop as evening approached the bees in the feeder would cluster there, freeze and die. This process would rinse and repeat until the colony was so small it could not maintain temperature in the hive and the colony would collapse. Like I said this happened in all 23 colonies. The second year I took the feeders out completely and placed my mountain camp sugar right on top of my frames as I would with a normal wooden hive. My survival rate went up drastically to the point where I only lost 4 colonies in those boxes. Now I absolutely love them for spring feeding and feeding during a dearth. The other thing I find to be a negative with these hives are spring clean out. With normal boxes I just reversed my bottom box with my top box and moved the Queen downstairs. With the Apimaye boxes you have to remove all the frames from both boxes if you're running a two box system to clean out and reverse the frames with the bottom box. Overall I like the Apimaye hives but they do not make much sense when you start moving towards a sideline or commercial beekeeper. The vast majority of my hives are all wooden boxes. Again this was an excellent video with a lot of good information. Thanks for sharing.
I ran Apimaye hives for a couple years and got rid of them. I really disliked how glued together they got with propolis, that you can't really stack a wooden box on them if you need more equipment in a pinch, and I didn't see any benefit in survival rates vs my much cheaper, lighter and flexible wooden boxes. I did like the upper entrances but I ended up just buying some small nuc entrance gates for cheap on Amazon and drilled holes in my boxes and put those on. Super flexible solution, especially if you run single brood chambers. Every beekeeper has different preferences, and like the Flow Hive, I can see how this would be great if you have a few colonies and can baby them, but once you get into some volume, I feel it's hard to justify the additional cost and management challenges with these hives. Just my $0.02.
Happy Valentines Day my Favorite Keeper☺️💘🐝🌻That was a very good and interesting review on the Apimaye hives! The handles making it easier for thieves made me sad tho, these days if it's not bolted down there r always ppl who will steal it and not give a fig about how hard uve worked and what these creatures mean to u, they just see a quick buck and couldn't care less about U or the bees😔😡Fingers Crossed u never have to deal with that!✌️Loved ur idea about the serial number i registered my bike so the police can look it up online if it ever gets stolen and thats what they could do with the hives too Apimaye should pay u royalties for that! The built in feeders were cool tho, I just did my 3rd Century ride in Palm Springs Saturday and when u mentioned sugar = fuel I Felt that🤣Definitely Need those rest stops to re fuel us thats for sure🚲Bummer that their frames work best tho but it makes sense from a money standpoint😔But again Great unbiased review and I say wood frames in the long run are the way to go, if it ain't broke don't fix it as they say! Well Happy Valentines Day and I will see U in the next one my friend😊🌻👑🐝🍯#happyvalentinesday #beefitbeekeeping #beefitbeeyard #beefithoney #beefit #beekind #emilyisthebeesknees #apimaye #springiscoming🌻
I have nothing but Apimaye hives and would not trade them for wood boxes. There's no real maintenance involved other than cleaning the outside of them if you wish. As for having a serial number to prevent theft, well I've never seen a serial number on a wooden box and if that is a concern you could always easily engrave one in the plastic and yes its food grade plastic. I run 10 wooden frames in mine and have never had any issues in removing or placing the frames in the hives. I can also start off with a package of bees using the divider wall and then later remove the wall as the size of the hive grows and therefore no need for two different sizes boxes. The upper feeding trays are fantastic in that I can add either liquid or solid food without exposing myself to the bees and the feeders are reverseable so you can feed either or using the same feeder. The R value of insulation of these hives is fantastic and they require no additional insulation during the winter months and I would have to disagree with there being any thoughts of this as babying my bees. These hives most replicate the bee's natural habitate of living in a tree and it's R value. Apimaye also makes equipment so that you can use your current wooden boxes and yet gain some of the fantastic features of the regular Apimaye hives. Now as for the cost, well that depends on how you look at it as these hives could easily last 15 to 20 years with little no maintenance were as with wood hives you might get 5 years of service so long as you do the required painting and repairs however, as the old saying goes.....you get what you pay for.
I call bullshit on only getting 5yrs out of wood! One of the older beekeepers here in Western Australia has wooden boxes that were made between 1955 and 1958. He wax dipped them when they were 10yrs old and they are still in service.
I think she only gets 9 frames in because the condition of the equipment. Doesn't look like any of the propolis is ever scraped off of the hives which makes them not fit as closely together. I understand this gets harder to do when you have more and more hives, but a little equipment maintenance and I think 10 should easily fit no problem.
I have the apimaye hive, in the winter I line a honey super with one and a half styrofoam, place it on top, remove the feeders and when I place feed inside the bees are clustered in the top.
Hey Emily, I agree with you on the price-point of the insulated hive.. I was looking into a single deep Poly hive around 120 from Dadant, and others a little more. I did order in an insulated knock off hive from across the pond, it just arrived but not used it yet.. Add up all the stuff included and compare to a wood hive, its not all that crazy when you compare apples to oranges with similar features. Add in a top feeder and a screen bottom to a wood hive kit, to be fair add on a hive cozy and the price is comparable.. Its my point of view.. I paid 300 for three deep boxes comparable to the Apimaye set-up.. Today was warm and I saw pollen baskets on the bees. [There is a thing called Micro-Dot to mark your equipment and register it with law enforcement]
They look to be a great product, kind of pricey. I just don't like the way all the plastic looks in apiaries, seems to artificial to me. Now I do really like the new top feeder they came up with and you can use it with standard wooden ware. Have a great day Emily.👍
I have one ten frame and I just bought 5 of the 7 frame nucs apimaye makes, I was very impressed with the 7 frame I already have, I'm planning on using them to use as queen mating, they divide into 3 frame nucs . great video ❤👍👍👍
Great vid as always. Maybe you could ask Apimaye to provide a spot on the front of the box that is extra thick so you can brand them to reduce the problem with theft. Their price would also increase the desirability for theft. I'm about to start branding all my frames because of a number of reports locally of someone stealing full frames and replacing them with empty ones. Unless you brand, you never know it is happening.
Had two hives make it, the two I started with. I didn’t feed them enough pollen in fall. Didn’t feed the two that survived and they didn’t have much resources either. So I’ll split them again this year and feed the heck out of them.
You explanation about the insulation explains why my long Langstroth hives do so well year round. I have 2" foam insulation in the top of my LLHs along with them being built out of 2x12s helps year round.
I was told to brand my hive components with my pad dot number even if you move location if that number is found they can find you brand them with you drivers license number ,cousin lost some saddles and was instructed to brand any saddle hence forth with his driver's number
I am not overly impressed. We get super cold in northern wisconsin and bees have a tough time using the feeders..if at all. My 10 frames were tight and pulled apart a couple trying to get them out. When doing a mite treatment with Formic the bees had glued the upper frames to the ones in the lower box so you are lifting almost 20 frames before you can split them apart!! Takes muscle and a strong back. Another thin is being able to clear the entrance of dead bees…how are you to do that? We had to remove the front bar and saw off the ‘teeth’ so I could use my hook to pull out the dead bees…which was fully blocked🙁 I will not be investing in any more of these… and Em..still waiting on the hive data sheet😞
Hi Emily u have snow here in Florida we had 21 couple months ago but my bees I wrap old blankets around them but now no blankets it 70 s degrees around 2 o'clock bees are covering my yard but no stinging
I like the Apimayes for breeder hives bc they give ya that couple week advantage of having warmer hive temps a week or 2 sooner than the rest but in all honesty they’re super expensive. So my favorite are double stacked 5 frame nucs. They have a lot of success overwintering. Less room for the bees to have to move over on frames and instead can just slowly work their way up the middle
agree to disagree....i have over 50 Apimayes and would never go back to wood. I use wood and apimaye frames. I run 7 frames and 7 frames fit in the box. Your explination of babying the bees is interesting. Apimayes duplicate trees...R-7 insulation ...thats not babying them its provide what nature does.
@@chuckjager6731 really..oh ok....you must be one of those internet warriors -- All keyboard and no backbone. Your immature name calling doesnt make me mad... I just makes me feel sorry for your low self esteem.. Must be horrible being you? ....sad
