Development of the Drayton Hive

I began beekeeping in 1979, first with WBCs and then with Nationals. Soon I had 14 hives across two or three sites and was harvesting honey by the hundredweight. However, all that lifting eventually caused serious damage to my back and although I had surgery, it was four years before I could stand fully upright again. I sold the bees and gave my powered extractor to the local beekeeping association.

When I resumed, a decade later, it was with Warré hives. Maximising honey production had ceased to be my priority; I was relaxed about swarming and was interested in the bee’s ability to defend itself against varroa. I found this a much more fulfilling and enjoyable approach to beekeeping.

However, the practice of nadiring (adding boxes to the bottom of the stack instead of the top, as in Nationals) threatened more back strain. But, for me, the real problem was the natural propensity for bees to attach comb to the hive walls and, sometimes, to comb in the box below. Releasing it is stressful for both the bees and beekeeper and, I decided, there must be a better way.

I then tried a Horizontal Top Bar Hive but just one season was enough for me. I had the same problem of brace comb, full combs collapsed under their own weight in hot weather and the hive’s design makes feeding almost impossible.

So I started building a hive that did not require much lifting, one that used frames instead of bars but frames which could be cleared of honey without the need for expensive equipment. I had become convinced of the benefits of insulation and I wanted to regain my shed which, for years, had been full of supers or Warré boxes.

Several prototypes later, I developed a hive which borrows some of the best features of the established designs and avoids some of the difficulties inherent in their use. What has become known as the Drayton Hive was originally just for me, but it immediately attracted the interest of other beekeepers who suffered from the same frustrations. Small-scale production began in the Wood School of the Sylva Foundation, an environmental charity which fosters home-grown timber. However, it soon became clear that more capacity was needed, and it is now in commercial production – see Shop

Andrew Bax