User:Dacresend/sandbox

The Zest Bee Hive
Designed by a British architect, with the help of others, the ZEST hive claims, by its design, to solve the problems of honeybee health and beekeepers wealth that previous hives have failed to do. There is a book "Beekeeping with ZEST" from Northern Bee Books that explains the design principles of "doing more with less" and its origins. The book, while comprehensive, is not up to date as the hive has continued to be a work in progress after the book was published. It started as a DIY design for the third world hive with bamboo frames, concrete blocks and a corrugated tin roof, but seems to have morphed into a universal hive for bees and beekeepers generally, but which is only part DIY. www.thezesthive.com

It is a deep (double brood frame) horizontal hive with an external envelope of floor, walls and roof made up of insulating blocks normally used in housing, but laid loose. There are no supers, but there can be one. It has trickle top cross air ventilation and bee entry, intended to eliminate the flue/stack effect found in bottom entry vertical hives. The ZEST colony cluster volume is high compared to its surface area. This can be reinforced with the deployment of the end partitions pressing the bees to build downwards. These qualities are all claimed to assist the bees in thermoregulating the hive, controlling the brood temperature, humidity, dew point, evaporation, condensation and ventilation to that required by the bees.

This claims to keep the colony free of diseases such as nosema, acarine and varroa which are assisted by the cold, damp and thermoregulating difficulties found in previous hives. Other diseases are claimed to be impacted by the healthier warm, dry, stable environment, but is not proven. The varroa suppression is evident, but is admitted as an unintended consequence of the hive design. The bee pupation period is apparently reduced in a ZEST hive giving the varroa mites less time to mature in the cells. Their numbers fall away exponentially.

The ZEST hive can be an entirely DIY hive of bamboo lattice frames or stapled wood battens if preferred, and used with a wood carrier frame. Plastic lattice frames, carrier frame, queen excluders and partitions are available to purchase. The plastic lattice frames are forever frames within which the bees draw out their own honeycomb. It is harvested before the frame is returned to the hive for refilling. Honey extraction is by crushing in a mesh bag, hanging up and draining down.

The ZEST hive meets modern Heath and Safety Regulations with a maximum load lift of 4kgs, being one full frame of honey and from a standing position. Maintenance is modest. "Letalone" beekeeping can be deployed. The bees tend to be quiet as inspections are not disruptive. They use few stores in winter.

The ZEST hive is about a third of the cost of other hives when the honeycomb area is compared. It has a volume equal to about 4 Langstroth brood bodies, but can house a colony at each end for over winter, giving an embarrassing surplus of bees in the spring. Few are lost and swarms are rare.

The importance of the ZEST hive seems not to have been recognised by the beekeeping establishment including its media, universities and commercial outlets for bee equipment. The reasons are not entirely clear as it has been around for several years, but has been largely met with establishment silence.