Since my bees have been moved from rural splendor (where I could do as I please) to an old neighborhood where people have standards, I decided to switch out my old method of putting the hives up on cinder blocks or pallets for something a bit more aesthetically pleasing. Cinder blocks were cheap. Pallets (from work) were free. The stands I ended up with were neither.
About a year ago, Dadant started selling a plastic ventilated hive stand complete with moats around the legs and a pull-out drawer for mite inspection. At $29.95 plus shipping, they ain't cheap. But with only two hives, I figured it wouldn't break the bank, so I got a couple.
They needed to be assembled, but they snapped together easily enough. The sides slope toward the middle, and a drawer does indeed slide out from the underside (you access it from the back of the hive--good!). The slope (which you can see in the picture) means that there's a bit more than bee space under the center of the hive, and predictably, the girls took advantage and built an inch or so of drone comb there on the bottom of the center frames.
I've had them under the hives for about a month now, and so far, no problems. I'm not using the ant moats on the legs; to me, that would just be asking for mosquitoes or funky water. But ants aren't a real problem here, anyway.
I do like the drawer for inspecting hive debris. And yes, I've seen a few mites in there, though not enough to worry about (2-4 on a 24 hour drop). The drawer is only the size of the center rectangle, however. If I were to redesign these, I would made the ventilated bottom flat and the drawer full-size across it. I'm not sure why they did it this way. I'm wondering if they need to make it more rigid to hold more weight, and having the entire center be plastic mesh wouldn't have given it the strength they were looking for. Don't know. I'll have to ask an engineer.
On the whole, they serve the purpose and they do look nice (nicer than some of my woodenware, unfortunately). I'm not sure they're worth $30 apiece, though.
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3 comments:
I loved these stands at first...used them on 5 hives and they worked great the first year...however, the plastic is not stable and after 1 1/2 yrs all of my stands are so brittle that a bump or any sudden movement will shatter the plastic (my suit got caught on the front landing for example and shattered the front piece).....I was a big supporter of these stands when they first came out, but I would no longer recommend them for use beyond 1 year. Tyler form California
Interesting. I've had mine for 3 years now, and they seem fine. Neither have collapsed or seem weakened. I wonder if yours were a different batch?
The other anon poster said he's from California and you are from New York. Sun makes most plastics brittle. Having less sun in New York, I imagine you'll get a couple more years out of yours. Or they were from a different batch.
citybees in Vancouver BC
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