Laurence Edwards tests a hempcrete beehive at the Telford Beekeeping Show. The material is dramatically lighter than concrete yet surprisingly strong, though it cures slowly and is more fragile. The vendor claims hempcrete can be stronger than Kevlar at the right thickness.
In this video, I'm gonna show you one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life, and that is a beehive made with hempcrete. So as you know, I've got myself a couple of concrete beehives. I've got bees in them at the moment. They are doing very, very well. I'm in the Telford International Centre. They're setting up for the beekeeping show, and I'm just going around having a look at all the different vendors. And I could not miss the Stone Apiary who've brought their concrete beehives with them, but have also brought their new hempcrete beehives with them as well. So I'm taking one of these hempcrete beehives home. They are so much lighter than the original concrete and they are super strong as well. So get the camera fired up, let's take a look around the Stone Apiary at the Telford International Centre at the Beekeeping Show. So absolutely loving the look of this stall here. Ross has set this one up so well. So this one over here, we've got the original Stone Apiary concrete beehive, iconic design. I really do love that design. And as you can see, he does his original concrete beehives in a range of different colors and tints. And then I wonder who that beehive is for over there. Definitely Richard Knowles got his pre-order in. Bees in Brittany, he is gonna love it. And I'd be really interested to see how well the bees do over in France in these concrete beehives. But this is the one I'm so, so excited to see, and that is the brand new hempcrete beehive. As you can see, similar design to the original concrete beehive, but it's got this lovely mottled Really makes it stand out. Best thing about this hempcrete beehive though is it is considerably lighter than the original concrete and perlite mix. That's a super heavy beehive. This one here takes a little bit longer to cure, maybe a little bit more fragile, but I'll tell you what, I'd take that for a much lighter hive. And I think that effect that's going around the side as well is really, really cool. So just picking up that hempcrete roof there, I'll tell you what, you could not pick up the concrete version like that. It is so, so much lighter than the original. Really good design improvement. And adding that hempcrete in there as well, apparently it's stronger than Kevlar if you get the right thickness. Ross absolutely swears by these though. These are gonna be super strong. Although I'm holding this up now, it is still a little bit heavy. I've taken the lid off the hempcrete hive and I just couldn't believe it. That is a beautiful little crown board that's made out of hessian sacking. What an amazing idea. Really, really clever. Saves that roof getting covered in muck. And then as per the standard one, you've got your metal bar runners on there. Takes a Langstroth frame, 10-frame Langstroth. And I'll just give you another little close-up there on the detail of that Hempcrete there. Really, really good-looking hive. So there we go, that's the first look around the brand new Hempcrete beehive. That one there is mine, I'm taking it home. I'm gonna run it for the season, compare it to the concrete perlite beehives, see which one does best. If you enjoyed the video, give it a thumbs up, make sure you subscribe to the channel.
