What is the ZEST hive?
A hive built around the bees.
Most hives make bees work to survive. The ZEST hive gives them the warm, dry, natural home they'd choose for themselves — and makes beekeeping simpler, cheaper and kinder in the bargain.
Bees deserve a better home
In the wild, bees settle in a cave or a hollow tree. A cave holds a steady warmth but is often too big; a tree is cosier but swings hot and cold. Neither is quite right. The ZEST hive is the first to give bees everything at once — warm, dry, humid and stable, and adjustable in size as the colony grows and shrinks through the year.
How it works
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Warm and dry, all year — a thick, insulated shell lets bees hold the brood nest at the perfect temperature, with gentle top ventilation that keeps it dry, never damp.
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Room to grow — small in winter, large in summer. The hive fits the colony, not the other way round.
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Almost looks after itself — calmer, better-tempered bees, slow to swarm and productive, that can be left largely to themselves.
Frames that last a lifetime
Inside sit the patented ZEST frames. The bees draw their own natural comb — no wax foundation needed. At harvest you simply cut the comb and drain it in a bag, then hand the frame straight back. No spinner, no machinery, no yearly maintenance. The frames need no upkeep and last, effectively, forever.
Healthier bees, naturally
It isn't just comfort. In practice, ZEST colonies have proven functionally free of varroa, nosema and acarine — the diseases that trouble conventional hives — thanks to the warmth, the natural comb and the way the hive is designed. Healthier bees, with far less intervention.
More bees, less money
A ZEST hive is mostly built from inexpensive materials, with just the frames to buy. Made this way it comes to about £328 — and works out around four times better value than a traditional WBC hive: roughly £65 per square metre of comb against £254. And that's before the savings on honey spinners, repairs, hive tools and yearly upkeep you simply don't need.
4× better value than a WBC hive
What the ZEST hive is for
The ZEST hive isn't built for commercial honey farming or for moving between sites — it's a bee-friendly home, best kept a couple of miles from the next, that naturally keeps colonies healthy wherever they are. Beekeeping for the good of the bees, spread gently across the country.
Fifty years in the making
The ZEST hive is the life's work of Bill Summers — retired architect and beekeeper since 1974 — who set out to design the home bees truly deserve. Today his daughter Nahla carries that work forward.