Win A Zest Beehive Competition

In this video, I'm going to show you my brand new Zest Beehive. I'm not going to show you how to build it, but I'm going to give one away for free. Now that might seem like a very strange intro. You kind of think, well, you built this Zest Hive, you built it from things that you can go and collect from your local B&Q or DIY store, but you're not going to show us how to build it. And the reason I'm not going to show you how to build it is for a very specific reason. I'm not very good at building things, and that is a bit of an abomination of a Zest Beehive. But the beauty of the Zest Beehive is that you can make it with whatever you have. So for me here, I've got some sheets of plastic insulation board, I've got some leftover Celotex, I've got some plastic pallets that I've used for the base. The designer of this hive, Bill, very kindly sent me the kit that you have to build the hive around, and he's also provided one free for a lucky competition winner on this channel, and I'll give you the details of that at the end of the video. But the reason that I'm not showing you how I built the hive is because Bill has done a video showing you how he built the hive. Bill is an architect. Bill is the designer of the beehive, and I am just a mere YouTuber who does not know how to build things properly. Even though I'm a civil and structural engineer, I should kind of be a little bit better, but I have this massive flaw that I don't really read instructions very well. I kind of go off on my own tangent and then things fall down. So do not copy what you see in this video. I'm going to link you out to Bill's video at the end because he has put together a really nice detailed video showing you every single step all along the way on how to build this Zest beehive using 440mm aerated concrete blocks. However, I'm going to show you around my beehive and the way that I've put it together and just talk to you a little bit about Zest beehives and why I'm so excited to have one in my apiary. So first off, what is a Zest beehive? Now I'm not going to go into tons of literature on this because there is so much information online on the website. All I'm going to say is that it's a homemade beehive that is heavily insulated, and apparently the bees do very, very well in it. Now, you know me at Black Mountain Honey, I'm not going to take someone else's word for that. I'm going to put bees in this hive today or my next video, and I'm going to run the beehive in this apiary as a permanent fixture. So you will see lots and lots of videos of this Zest beehive, how the bees are doing in it, if they're thriving. I can't see them not thriving, to be honest, because that is the most insulated beehive I have ever seen in my life. And as I know, in North Wales Insulated beehives do very, very well. The bees love them, they thrive inside of them, and I honestly can't see the bees not doing well. So before I take this down again and show you inside, let's take a look around the outside and I'll show you how I've bodged things. What I will do is all the way through this video, when I've done something different to what Bill's done, I'll tell you what I've done differently, I'll tell you why I've done it differently, and 9 times out of 10 it's just because I've got something lying around that I think suitable for the job. So let's take a look at this beehive, see what you think. Right, starting at the bottom then. So the original design of the Zest Beehive, you're supposed to have a solid foundation block. In Bill's video, he uses a paving slab and he embeds that onto the ground to give you a really flat, solid foundation. Now, I didn't have a paving slab and I've got these plastic pallets that I know are absolutely rock solid. So all I've done is I've strapped together my 3 plastic pallets and I've just leveled that down, got it really, really level because it is important that you get the base of this very, very level. So the rest of Bill's design, once you've got that paving slab down, you're building it up with wooden batons, and then you're using a plywood base in order to support your breeze block design. As I said, I don't recommend copying me because I have no idea how this is going to work. This is just what I've whipped up overnight just to get this video completed. So starting off, 3 pallets, nice solid, very, very level base. Then the next level up, we're building it with breeze blocks. And on Bill's video, he shows you how to cut these 440mm blocks in order to make sure that it's a very nice neat design. The original design of this was built with 600mm blocks, and they're very difficult to come by now. So what Bill's done is he has taken that design, changed it round, and now it's built with 440mm aerated blocks. Now again, with my design here, I've got the wrong type of blocks. I went and got the lightest blocks that I could possibly get in B&Q. I went to Wickes as well, by the way. And these were light aerated concrete blocks, but they're not quite the most aerated ones that you can get. So you can get a lighter one. The idea with this Zest Beehive is that you get the most insulative blocks that you can possibly get. You can see from the top there as well, we've got lots and lots of insulation on this beehive. But these blocks here, they're going to do. They're very, very light, very brittle. And then the base there, you have to cut the blocks to make sure that you get a nice solid base. And then you're building it up around a plastic frame that comes with the Zest kit. So we'll get into the Zest kit in a little bit. That's inside, but Bill's instructions give you really nice clear instructions how to build this. As I said, I'm just showing you my build. This isn't an instruction video. The next level up here, again, nothing like Bill's design at all. I've got these leftover insulation boards, 2 different types here. So in between I've got sandwiched Celotex boards And then I've got these kind of hoarding boards, which is a really tough PVC plastic with insulation in the middle. So you can see I've got about 6 to 8 inches there of insulation. And then the design, again, I've not followed Bill's design at all 'cause I've just got leftover blocks. His design is a single layer of these aerated blocks on there, and then you need something on the top just to keep the water off. Bill's design uses metal corrugated sheet and some tie-downs, and I'm definitely gonna use that in the future because what I've put on there isn't really gonna make that very water resistant. So what I absolutely love about this beehive already is that you can just go into skips and use leftover material. If you're in the construction trade, you are going to have loads of this material lying around anyway. The only thing I needed to buy for this was the blocks, and they were cheap. They were kind of like £1.80 each, and I bought 40 of them, but I've not used all of them. And as you can see, I've double layered up there, and I've got some knocking around around the back there as well. So quick summary, I've got a top insulation board, I've got some blocks there, another insulation board, 2 sheets of Celotex, another insulation board. That black space there is your entrance, and I think there's 10 of those all the way around. Got the main hive body, that's just insulation board as well, and then we've got a plastic pallet base. So I hope you enjoyed that look around the Zest Hive. I was using my new camera and my new gimbal there, which was great fun, but oh my goodness, that camera is heavy. I'll maybe have to restrict when I use that one in future. But now we get to the exciting bit. Let's take a look inside the Zest Hive, look at the frames, look at the plastic mechanism, look at the queen excluders, partition boards, and then talk to you a little bit about how this beehive is going to work. Right, so it's now starting to look a little bit more like a beehive. We've got frames, we've got partitions, we've got queen excluders, we've got the plastic frame mechanism that not only holds all of the frames in place, but it gives you the dimensions and the ability to build the blocks around it. Now I'm not going to show you all of this because Bill has done such a good job at putting this together that there's no point me regurgitating the information and then getting that information wrong. But what you can see here around the edge is plastic mechanism that is not only your frame runner, but it is also that mechanism to give you the dimensions to get the frames correct. These little black spaces around the edges, I'll come on to those in a little bit, but they are effectively ventilation for the top, but they're also entrances that you can adjust with a very fine amount of detail. The hive has been designed so you can have 2 colonies overwintering. So one colony over this side, another colony over this side, and then in the summer period you can take out the central dividers and you've got enough space in there for one good-sized summer colony. So these 2 blue boards here, they're queen excluders, and then you've got the adaptation on this one here that, that is a partition board. So what you're seeing there is white Correx attached onto that blue queen excluder board, and as you can see, it's very tight up to the edge. So no bees can get through there, no queens can get through there. You've got one compartment over this side, and then you've got another compartment over this side here. And then this side shows you the queen excluder function. Again, you can see really tight and close up to the edges there, no bees or queens getting through there. And then the other side, I've got my partition board. So what I really like about this design is that it's compatible with British Standard National Equipment. So these frames here that I'll get out in a little bit, these all form part of the kit that Bill sent me over. Part of the kit that you can win in the competition at the end of this video as well. It consists of 24 of these frames which I'll get out in a little bit. They're the depth of 3 national supers, 2 queen excluders, 2 partition boards, and then the plastic frame mechanism that goes around the edge and gives you the dimensions and the stability in order to build this hive. So this is what the frames look like. They are such a cool design, aren't they? So they're effectively a treble depth national super, or national shallow I should say. They're self-spacing like you'd get with most British national kit, and there's various different ways that you can connect your wax into these. Or if you want to go completely freestyle, just leave the bees to connect the wax onto these as well. Again, I'm not going to go into the detail on that because I'm a Zest newbie. I've not done it before. There's loads of information on the Zest website. What I love about this though is the fact that you can get your British Standard national frames into the hive, so it makes a transfer of bees really, really easy. We're going to cover that in the next video. I've got a perfect 14 by 12 colony. I'm going to bring that up here, get the bees in, and I'm going to intersperse these plastic frames in between those national frames and get the bees hopefully working them with no starter strips, completely natural. I'll then transition out the wooden frames Oh, I, I honestly thought that bee wasn't going to sting me though. I thought if I stay still long enough, it's just going to go away. But there you go. I'm up here in the morning, um, and that's it. Now I've got one sting, so I better finish this video quickly before the rest of them come over. So that's my plan. I'm going to transition out all the wooden frames and I'm going to run it on this plastic frame system. Right, so you might be looking at this beehive and thinking, well, hang on, where do the bees get in? And I have to say, I thought that at first, and I was thinking, well, I'm going to have to drill some holes in the breeze blocks or something. But no, it's a really nice design. These plastic strips, you can move those over, and then here we go, we've got a nice little single bee space entrance. I really like that. Great design because it means in the season, if you've got wasp issues, you can get that down to a single bee space like that, and you've got that ability to have multiple entrances all way around the beehive on both ends, but you've also got the ability to completely close those up as well if the bees don't want the ventilation or you've got issues with wasp attacks. So there we go, that is my Zest beehive build. As I've said a number of times on this video, don't copy what I've done here. I will link you out to Bill's video at the end because he gives you a really nice detailed instruction starting from that base going all the way up to the top. I've just completely bodged this together. But I have to say, I'm really, really excited by this. I love trying out new things, especially love trying out new beehives, and this one here is very, very different. Completely different design, super insulated, which you know I'm a massive fan of. Lots of nice design details with the entrances and the ventilation at the top. We'll see how that works. I have high hopes for my Zest beehive, and I'm really excited to get some bees inside it. So there you go, that's the first look at the Zest beehive. You'll see lots of this beehive going forward. I'm going to wrap this video up now so I don't get stung anymore in the face. If you want to win a Zest beehive kit so you can build it yourself, it's UK only I'm afraid. It's really easy to enter the competition. 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