National Bee Hive with Gabled Roof in Cedar by Easipet 21266

When you open the packet you can smell the beautiful cedar wood. The item was easy to put together and is the perfect addition to our apiary.

I bought this Hive as I am just starting out and it seemed good value, it came within 2 days and on inspection of the hive I was pleased with its quality.I have very few woodworking skills so the thought of the build was a little daunting, so I enlisted my son to help.We started by placing all the parts into numbered groups and assembled them dry.I did not want to use nails so used 3mm x 40mm screws and drilled a very small pilot hole which I then countersank for each corner, we applied a little glue before screwing up on a low drill setting so as not to split the wood.It all went together very well and is strong, as for the roof we used silicon & screwed from below.Very pleased Tim Plymouth.

You have to be suspicious when the online video skips how to assemble the roof. Who in their right mind compromises the integrity of the roof by hammering nails through it? The amount of different nails, pins and even brass pins for assembly is a cop out by Easipet. Fortunately I had extras from previous Thorne hives (recommend you buy this make instead) with little guidance on the size of nails pins required, you could find yourself making unnecessary expenditure of wrong sizes. The Queen excluder is a thin piece of metal that most keepers avoid as propolis will stick it solid to your brood box, making it very likely you will bend it on first efforts to remove. Finally the bottom grill assembly is not tight. You get what you pay for, this is a poorly thought through product the only good aspect was that the wood seemed sound and well cut.

The wood was of perfectly good quality - better than I expected given some reviews here. Nothing warped. A couple of small splits, but this is a bee hive not fine furniture. Pieces were clearly marked and well machined. I glued using Titebond III waterproof and nailed with stainless steel nails (a selection enough to do 5 beehives was about £5). I prefer to drill small nail pilot holes so no risk of splitting. A coupe of pieces needed easing with a sharp chisel.Assembly took me two hours including the stand, bought separately. Two coffees and two phone calls in that time as well: It's very easy. However, I am an experienced woodworker. I am very happy with mine and I think it is excellent value so I will be buying another with their 7.5% discount voucher.

This hive arrived almost immediately. Well packaged and well presented, lovely wood and so made really nice hive. BUT the instructions are dreadful, and actually wrong in one (important) place. It tells you that the angled pieces should slope "into" the box, whereas with a diagram and correctly stating that the angled pieces should be angled OUT of the boxes would have made things a whole lot easier. Having constructed the hive (wrongly) and glued it together, I am not best pleased since I will now have to get ANOTHER few pieces of cedar and cut them to the correct shape to now make the hive work properly (the way I built it will mean that rain will drain INTO the box not out of it. Having said all that, it was my own fault and the hive itself is looks lovely.

Very pleased with funal product. Delivery on time. Assembly instructions need to bee 🐝 clearer. This was my first hive so wasnt too sure how things went togeather. There was an online bideo but was also a bit unclear in parts. On the whole very satisfied and will get hive number 2 from here .

I found this easy to construct. The trick is to place all the parts in order and then proceed from the baseboard tray. Most parts are numbered and this makes the process easy. I used screws rather than nails and glue - the same size screws that are recommended for the stand (5.0 cm by 40 mm) with smaller ones to attached the roof - because they are easier to apply than nails, avoid hammering that might split the wood and give a firmer grip, thus avoiding the need for glue. The instruction 'up from the bottom' regarding the roof laths could be more specific because this distance determines the depth at which the roof rests on the hive. A lovely piece of equipment and a joy to build.

Item was just about as advertised, however, the quality of the wood and fittings was below minimum standard, despite the low price. The brood box sides were warped and one split during construction. The base was very crudely formed and it took quite a bit of modification to make everything fit, especially the hive base, and the entrance was very badly cut. The ported escape holes, in the crown board, (no porter escapes provided) were of a non-standard shape and EasiBee (Easipets' subsiduary) do not sell these items separately, so more modification there as well. I would not recomend this product to anyone who hasn't got sufficient woodworking repair capability to fix, replace or modify wood fittings.