polystyrene hives

[Kosh]

Is anyone using polystyrene hives? What have your results been versus wood hives? Which do you like better? They seem like they might help the bees over winter better in cold areas (such as New England where I am).

[Michael Bush]

Search on Beemax, styrofoam and polystyrene. You'll find many discussions on the subject.

[Daisy]

Most folks I've talked with were dissapointed with them....

Don't remember why.....

[bjerm2]

Hi, I use them through out my apiary. I have 18 hives using 3/4 depth suppers. Each hive has 5 suppers. I do not like the bottom boards and the top boards made from plastic. They have a tendancy to crack from the wieght of the hives and the tops fly off. I make my own tops and bottoms. The plastic makes the queens lay right up to the side of the hive. The wood peckers leave the plastic alone. This is the main reason I use them. I had the whole apiary almost distroyed with them pecking at the wood. You do have to be careful with the plastic since it can crack easy if your ruff with it. It is hard to paint. Latex paint 3 coats min. All I can say is get a few and see if you like them. The bees don't mind them and they are not as heavey as wood boxes. Good luck.
Dan

[BeeMiner]

I use polystyrene feeders (bought from BetterBee) on my hives. They work real fine. However, on one of my hives some large (1/2") black ants actually tunneled through the feeder to get to the sugar syrup. Fortunately they tunneled in toward the top instead of by the bottom, so the syrup didn't drain out. I covered the holes with good old duct tape and so far the ants haven't tried tunneling in again.

Anyone else have an ant problem like this before?

[kayakdg]

Hi. My first season I started with 4 of those foam hives in hopes of better winter survival. These N.Y. winters can be brutal. Dead out rates were about the same with them and wood. The main problem with the foam hives as others said is those carpenter ants They just destroy the foam hives and top feeders.Every time I do a inspection I find new piles of powdered foam.

[BeeMiner]

I never figured that carpenter ants would chew through polystyrene. I always thought they just stuck to wood. Makes me wonder what they might chew up underneath my house (not that I've seen any in my crawlspace lately).

[Kosh]

Thanks everyone for your experiences. i currently have only one hive and it is wooden. This is my first year of beekeeping and i'm planning on expanding next year with a few more hives, so i thought i'd ask peoples experiences to see if i should convert to polystyrene or stay with wood. I'm thinking wood will give me more of a fun 'working' winter building and staining/painting them.