Green Hive Roof

A while ago I read something on the net about green roofs. I thought they were a pretty good idea, I'd also read that a beehive may need some insulation to keep the heat in over winter and in the summer the sun on the metal roof skin can make things pretty uncomfortable for the bees inside. So I figured why not put a green roof on the bee hive? It should provide insulation, it'll be more aestheticaly pleasing and it'll possibly reduce the amount of attention the hive draws from neighbours.

My first attempt at a green hive roof

Turns out nobody seems to sell them so I needed to do a little research then make one myself. I read all about the different layers used for drainage, growing medium and whatnot and thought it sounded a little complex. I figured with it being such a small area I could just ignore all that technical stuff anyway. So off I went and bought some exterior plywood for the bottom and some wood for the sides.Treated the sides to match the hive and made basically a box with the sides dropping an inch below the floor. This then sits on top of the hive's proper roof and won't slide off. Unfortunately it was too heavy so I cut out most of the floor leaving a frame in which I stuck two layers of correx.

I then lined it with pond liner underlay, pond liner and another layer of underlay and flilled it with mostly perlite, a little soil and some vermicompost. I'd read that sedums are the things for a low maintenance green roof so bought a few and some nice grassy looking stuff. Popped it all in the box and slapped it on the hive. It's all doing rather well. Mostly I let the rain water it but I've added a litre or two of tap water myself now and then to help it along. As you can see from the picture it's doing fine, and certainly looks nicer than the metal square with a brick on the top type roof common to many hives. When I want to work the hive I just lift it off and pop it on the floor then remove the regular roof which is still underneath, in the photo above you can see hive2 still has a bare metal skin.

It is a little on the heavy side in fact and I suspect the wooden sides won't last forever so my plan is eventually to make a new version using two halves, each being a watertight rectangluar box with a lip on three sides that completely cover the hive roof and clip together in the middle. I'm thinking of maybe using aluminium for this so it'll last longer and have thinner walls. That'll have to wait till I have some spare cash kicking around though.

I occassionally see bees investigating the sedum flowers on it, posibly even gathering pollen or nectar, and I think they may use it to identify their hive. At the moment the second hive has a large bonsai tree sitting on top of the roof, looks nice and holds the roof down but obviously doesn't insulate much.

Roof space