> Such are the moving parts prone to jams and stuff like that.
They are probably prone to honey rather than jams. /jk
Actually the question I most want answered is about materials and environments -- I know hives can start in all sorts of things, but I am wondering about bee health (physical/social) in the context of metal and plastic.
Also their material preferences; do bees still need to be persuaded/cajoled to settle in an inorganic space when there might be wooden or brick structures in the vicinity?
Are commercial hives already well past this point and using metal and plastics?
Here in AU, most commercial hive operators are using very basic wooden hives - many aren't even using (metal) mesh bases, which are a common home-scale defence against things like Small Hive Beetle (SHB) because at scale it's a significant cost, both cap-ex and op-ex.
In 2015, the Flow Hive guys broke all kinds of kickstarter records with their plastic frame / externally-harvestable hive, though we've had plastic frames around for a lot longer than that. The bees don't seem to mind, but the only metric we have are 'do they stick around?'.
Given they're free to leave at any time if they don't like their home, that's a pretty reasonable measure.
Before varroa were identified as one of the key causal factors of colony collapse, there were questions around whether the natural wax foundation, with its regular, and perhaps slightly under-sized cells, were part of the problem. Same question with plastic foundation / frames. Empirical evidence suggests that the kinds of high-quality plastic that's used in beehives isn't, so far as we can tell, part of the problem.
I'd be surprised to find any commercial keepers using polystyrene. Migratory bee keeping is rough on equipment, and at scale I think woodenware still makes the most sense. I'm not in that community, but everything I see in Bee Culture and online looks like polystyrene is firmly in the hobbyist realm.
> Genuine question: are you within their target market? I guess only a commercial honey maker would be?
No just interested in the technical side of the product. Though I would love to buy one with some friends and run it if they would ever start selling to consumers.
