Noochii - This Beehive Changes Everything 🐝

Behind me here I have the Nucci hive, the world's most sustainable beehive. In this video I'm going to give you a look inside this beehive, show you why it's so sustainable, show you all of the incredible features, and tell you why it's got pride of place in my garden. So sustainability is incredibly important to me, and I guess to beekeepers as a whole, and there are no beehives in the world that are more sustainable than this beehive. This beehive is made with a wood called accoya. Now akoya is a modified wood that uses bog standard pine, a very fast growing pine that is essentially pickled to give it these outstanding properties. The wood here is guaranteed to not rot above ground for 50 years, but it's also guaranteed to not rot underground for 25 years. Now can you imagine just taking like a normal piece of wood, putting it underground in some water and seeing how long that it would last? This wood here will last for 25 years underwater. So why does that make the beehive so sustainable though? The reason is, is that the wood that's used to make this beehive can grow to full height in the time that it takes for this wood to actually rot. That means these beehives are having a positive impact on the climate because while those trees are growing, they're sucking in all of that carbon, which means it's having a positive impact on the environment. So sustainability is important, but really what I'm interested in is getting inside this beehive and seeing how it works. Throughout the season, I'm going to do numerous videos on the Nucci Hive. Hopefully I'm going to keep it in my garden. I've still got to clear that one with my wife. But let's get inside, take a look, and see how brilliant the Nucci Hive is and just how well it fits into my garden. So the Nucci Hive comes in 2 or 3 different variations. I was very kindly gifted this one by Mark at Nucci Hive, and I specifically asked for it to be a multi-nuc hive. So not just a single colony or a double colony in here, I've got the ability to have 6 separate nucleus colonies in here with movable dividers, which gives me incredible flexibility when it comes to managing my bees. I like long hives and I've used long hives for a couple of years now, but the Nucci hive here is a massive upgrade over what I've previously used. There's 2 main reasons that I'll say that. One is that the only horizontal surface on the beehive in the Nucci hive is completely clad with aluminium. That means you're not gonna have any standing water and you're not gonna have any damage to this already incredibly well-protected wood. There's even a secret bonus inside this roof as well. When the owner Mark builds these hives, he puts insulation in between the layers of wood, which means that that top surface there is not only incredibly durable and weather resistant, it's really well insulated as well. In fact, all of the beehive is actually insulated, and you can see here Mark going to huge amounts of effort to get the insulation Inside to this beehive. So let's get inside this beehive, open it up, and I'll show you what it's all about. So when Mark said this beehive was going to be made from modified wood, I have to say I didn't have the best image in mind. I was thinking MDF, OSB, you know, manufactured woods. But I couldn't have been more proven wrong. In fact, it is way in advance of any of my expectations. The finish on this beehive is just Beautiful. Without a doubt, the most good-looking beehive that I own. What Mark has managed to do here is combine not only sustainability but merge that into really, really good-looking beehive. So you can see all of the body there is made with planks of acacia that are bound together, and they've got insulation inside them. Probably my favorite piece of design though is these pin legs— so powder-coated pin legs. In 4 different distinct colors. Now Mark really has left no stone unturned— color-coded feet for those hairpin legs to sit on. Now this is not only a design choice, but this means that it's going to be incredibly durable and you're not going to get any rot or any moisture coming up from underneath. Suitable to go onto concrete or a hard-standing floor, equally suitable to go onto the grass. So the mechanism to open this up is really, really smooth. You can open it up with one hand like that, gas-powered struts, and the same when it comes back down, really nice smooth action, and then it just sits down like that. So Mark hasn't missed any opportunities to make this beehive as durable as it can possibly be. As he calls it, it's heirloom quality. This is a beehive that you need to get your grandkids bought into because one day you will be giving it to them. What Mark is also really, really good at as well is branding the hive. Every single opportunity to get some nice branding on there, but not too much. In all of the right places, you can see you've got the Nucchi Hive brand, and I have to say, it is a really, really nice touch. So the version that I've got here, you can see we've got the dividers in place, Perspex screens on the top as well. So when you open this beehive up with bees inside, not a single bee is going to come flying out. And then you can see underneath the roof, that is the only single piece of plywood that is in this beehive. It's well protected from all of the weather underneath there, so you're not going to have any delamination. But also it gives you the space underneath that roof there to place like an English feeder or a rapid feeder on, and then you can individually feed each and every one of these splits. Now one of the things that I really like about the Langstroth variant of this hive is that the nice thick Perspex here sits in a top bee space configuration. That means it's nothing more than just a single sheet of really nice 6mm clear polycarbonate, really nice and scratch resistant. But I just love in the Langstroth variant that you don't have to have any rims in it at all, or the rims don't need to be built in here. Massively simplifies the design. And then you can see the little hole pops out there. You've got a nicely branded hole that gives you access there for feeding your bees. And you'll see here when I put this back in, the tolerances are absolutely brilliant. And because this is such stable wood, a modified wood called okouya. It means that you're not going to get that swelling and that change in size that you would for maybe a standard pine long hive. It's the tiny little details that Mark has not left out though. So you can see here just on this rim, it's ever so slightly lifted up. So in the event that any water is going to get in here, you've got this lip which means that it can't actually get into the bees. Now if you wanted to make this hive as cheap as you possibly could, you would go for very cheap screws, but every single piece of metal in this hive is made with stainless steel with the view to making it incredibly durable. You don't want any rust coming off these nails. This is a centerpiece beehive, something to put in a really nice garden, maybe an estate or something, for people to enjoy the craftsmanship. The legs are made of carbon steel, but they are underneath the wood and they are powder coated obviously into a beautiful, beautiful color. Now if you watch my videos regularly, you'll know I'm not a fan of landing boards. But the reason I'm not a fan of landing boards is because they don't stack correctly in my truck. When they're made of Accoya and they're sanded down as beautifully as this, I definitely do like landing boards. There's going to be no issues stacking this in my truck. Hopefully this one here is going to stay in my garden, but why not make it as easy as possible for the bees to land? And as I said, this is a beehive to enjoy. This is a beehive to watch and sit down and have a cup of tea. And thinking about that, you do want a landing board on a hive such as this. in order to enjoy the bees to the maximum. Now Mark very kindly left this with me as well. I was really curious to know what this was. So a standard cork will fit in the entrance like that, so if you ever need to close it up, like if the bees are getting robbed or something's going wrong, you can put the cork in there like that. But this little piece of wood here holds a secret in terms of the design of the entrance, and what it's got is a secret baffle inside to hopefully help to stop the wasps getting in there. Now I can't vouch for this, I've not seen this in action yet, but it's a really nice idea and I Definitely we'll update this video or do a future video showing how well this protects against wasps. So hopefully you can see it there. You've got the single entrance hole and then you've got 4 smaller diameter holes on the back with the connecting interwebs in between. That's the opposite side there. And again, you can see you've got your 4 holes with the webs in between, an internal baffle to hopefully make it easier for the bees to defend against wasps and to definitely eliminate an Asian hornet or a European hornet actually being able to get in. And then the final benefit, of course, is that you're not going to get any mice in here because there's no way they're going to fit through those gaps. So in terms of all of these dividers, you can take out the Perspex boards like that. They'll stack up easily on top of each other. You can see, really nice and easy to get out. Another way of getting them out is just taking the lid off like that and then taking this Perspex board out as well. And then what I absolutely love about this, and this is a special request from me, was for him to make me some of these boards here. And again, these aren't made of ply. These are made of purposely modified Akoya, and what they do is that they just slide in anywhere. And this is a massive benefit to me. I didn't want a fixed 6-option 5-frame nuc. I wanted the ability to kind of dummy them down a little bit like that and maybe make a 2-frame nuc in one, and then give me the option to kind of be a little bit more flexible. I've still only got 6 entrances, but what this means is that it gives you the flexibility throughout the season to To dummy the wood down and create smaller nucs and let them build up naturally. This beehive is about trying to get as many people involved in beekeeping as possible. You can open it up and the bees won't fly out, but you've also got these really nice, cool viewing windows at the side. Again, stainless steel fittings, modified Accoya wood. No expense has been spared on this beehive. Looking in, you'll be able to see the bees both from the top and from the side, which is brilliant for getting children involved in beekeeping. Everybody loves a viewing window. Now it's definitely the engineer in me coming out here, but look at the quality of these hinges. Big, thick stainless steel hinges that are supported by those gas struts. I just love the fact that everything has been built to last, and you can see that with the screws on this side here. Not only are the screws stainless, the collars that sit inside them stainless as well. I've done a little bit of reading on akoya, and apparently it is an absolute wonder wood, and I just can't wait to see how this beehive performs in my apiary for beekeeping. But also how well it ages over time. I'm not going to lie, some of the long hives that I've got, the wood on the top of them where you've got horizontal surfaces, it started to delaminate a little bit. So I know that the aluminium roof here is going to completely negate any lamination issues because there's no ply in there anyway. But it also means that the water is not going to stand on the wood, and then the wood, if the water does stand on it, is guaranteed for 25 years submerged in water. So I'm confident there's going to be no delamination and there's going to be no rot whatsoever. The other issue that I had with the wooden stands on previous long hives that I've used is that when you put them on grass, they do start to rot, and they start to rot quite quickly. And on this hive here, we've got powder-coated metal legs that look absolutely incredible but also make this beehive so much more durable. What will be interesting on this hive is to see how the wood weathers over time. I quite like the natural aging effect of cedar, but I definitely don't like the natural aging effect of pine. Especially if you're using non-stainless steel fittings. It can look tired very quickly. And when you're spending a lot of money on this hive— and we'll get on to money at the end of this— when you're spending a lot of money on a hive, you want it to look beautiful for a long time. You're not going to buy this beehive to turn into a commercial bee farmer. You're going to buy this beehive because you want a centerpiece, a showpiece to go into your garden. Even if you don't keep bees in it, look how beautiful it is. You could have this just in your garden as a table. I might tell my wife that's what we're going to do. We're just going to keep it in the garden as a table. We won't tell her that there's going to be bees inside it. But it justifies its position in the garden from the way that it looks, not because of its function in that it's a beehive. But I'll be keeping a close eye on that because at the moment, like, I wouldn't change anything in terms of the finish. I love that kind of slightly gray-black piney finish, and I hope that that stands the test of time and that it doesn't deteriorate or darken or change at all. I like the fact that it's not oiled either. I like that really nice smooth matte finish. There really is just nothing bad that I can say about the appearance of this hive. So finally, if you're interested in getting one of these hives, I'll put all of the information that you need in the description of this video. And for a very limited period, Mark has agreed to give my viewers a 10% off code. But it's not a cheap hive, it's £999. But compare that maybe to like the cost of a Flow Hive, which is £850, I know which one I would prefer to have in my garden. This just looks so much better. This will last so much longer. I'm so happy that Mark decided to give me one of these. He has given me the hive for free, but I'll do numerous follow-up videos showing this hive throughout the course of the season. I can't wait to get started.