Established in 1968, Beehive Coils Ltd celebrates its 40th Anniversary this year
MUCH has changed at Beehive Coils since founder and chairman Fred Bartram used to cut each fin for the coils by hand and drill each hole for the tubes individually. Nowadays, the company uses state-of-the-art fin-line presses giving accurately-cut high volume fins and the production process bears no resemblance to what it was then.

What hasn’t changed is Fred Bartram’s original desire to offer customers (HRP and Barkers were two of the company’s first customers) a high quality, superior product at a competitive price. Beehive Coils Ltd (and the company’s 100+ skilled employees) are still based in Suffolk, in its 90,000ft2 production facility, which is only an hour from London. This gives Beehive’s dedicated delivery transport easy access to the whole of its UK customer base, as well as its European clients.

While the production equipment is in a constant state of renewal, materials used in the productions of coils have also vastly improved over the years to give better performance and longer lasting products. Beehive spearheaded the introduction of hydrophilic fin as an option on the evaporators which encourages moisture to run off the fin, reducing the possibility of frost damage and increasing the performance of the coils in certain applications.



The company is keen to highlight the fact that ‘They don’t just make coils anymore’, as is highlighted on Beehive’s latest advertisements in ACR News. Over the past few years, Beehive has ventured out into many different areas of the air conditioning and heat transfer equipment market with great success. As well as the standard water, condenser and evaporator coils – Beehive now manufactures a long list of additional products such as CO2 units, steam coils, fan coils, horizontally-mounted flat bed units, v-block condenser units (all of these units can have fans supplied, fitted and wired by Beehive if required), portable heaters, enclosure unit ranges, coaxial condenser unit ranges and much, much more. Some of the company’s latest innovations can be seen on its website (www.beehivecoils.co.uk).

Beehive’s CO2 coil department has been getting busier and busier due to the recent demand for this type of unit. It is now able to hydraulically test its CO2 coils up to 110bar (over 1600psi) to ensure the coils are safe for use with this refrigerant. CO2 units were previously manufactured back in the 1940s and are now becoming popular once again due to progression in manufacturing and safety techniques, making this product a feasible option. Beehive also offers a full design service, which can normally be included within the cost of the coil.



Replacements are no problem either. If you have an old coil needing to be upgraded or repaired, just contact Beehive and send in the old coil. Once the original unit is received, Beehive can produce a replacement exactly as previous or in some cases, design a more efficient unit to improve performance and efficiency reducing the carbon footprint of the overall system when the new coil is fitted.

In its 40 years Beehive has manufactured nearly 2,000,000 coils and currently produces up to 1,000 coils/units every week.

All coils and units Beehive Coils produces are manufactured to current Pressure Equipment Directives and all are supplied with a comprehensive warranty. They also hold ISO9001:2000 accreditation. Beehive continues as a family business with three generations working together along with the employees to make certain that they meet customer requirements.