Little John
Drone Bee
- Joined
- May 27, 2012
- Messages
- 1,655
- Reaction score
- 4
- Location
- Boston, UK
- Hive Type
- Other
- Number of Hives
- 50+
Etton - if you have more time available then money, then British National boxes are cheap enough to make, if you're not too fussy about appearance.
I once made a couple from pallet wood - made them upside-down on a glass table top so as to use their upper edge as a reference. Top Bee Space is the easiest format to make - so the upper rails are first attached to the end blanks and the box then assembled using 'glue and screw':
When the glue is set, the bottom rail is added. Only butt joints are used - nothing fancy. Excess wood is then removed and the box height trimmed down to 225mm. Filler is applied to the pallet wood imperfections.
Finally, the inside (despite what the parrots say) is painted as well as the outside. Add runners if you want - I used some aluminium offcuts.
Total cost ? About £2 per box - to cover the cost of screws, glue, paint - and of course electricity. Not particularly pretty, but perfectly servicable - and plenty strong enough.
I really like the top and bottom rails (which some manufacturers call 'locking bars') of the British National design - as the top rail in particular provides a 'good handful' when carrying boxes.
I retained this design feature when making some 'National-Warre' boxes recently. These incorporate 8x National DN4 frames whilst retaining Warre's framed-design criteria exactly. These boxes are made from 35mm scaffold planks, with each corner being secured by 4x three-and-a-half-inch wood screws, plus a generous amount of 100% waterproof glue. As far as strength goes, these really are the 'Land Rover' of beehive boxes. Cost ? About £5 per box if you need to buy the scaffold planks - £2 per box otherwise.
LJ
I once made a couple from pallet wood - made them upside-down on a glass table top so as to use their upper edge as a reference. Top Bee Space is the easiest format to make - so the upper rails are first attached to the end blanks and the box then assembled using 'glue and screw':
When the glue is set, the bottom rail is added. Only butt joints are used - nothing fancy. Excess wood is then removed and the box height trimmed down to 225mm. Filler is applied to the pallet wood imperfections.
Finally, the inside (despite what the parrots say) is painted as well as the outside. Add runners if you want - I used some aluminium offcuts.
Total cost ? About £2 per box - to cover the cost of screws, glue, paint - and of course electricity. Not particularly pretty, but perfectly servicable - and plenty strong enough.
I really like the top and bottom rails (which some manufacturers call 'locking bars') of the British National design - as the top rail in particular provides a 'good handful' when carrying boxes.
I retained this design feature when making some 'National-Warre' boxes recently. These incorporate 8x National DN4 frames whilst retaining Warre's framed-design criteria exactly. These boxes are made from 35mm scaffold planks, with each corner being secured by 4x three-and-a-half-inch wood screws, plus a generous amount of 100% waterproof glue. As far as strength goes, these really are the 'Land Rover' of beehive boxes. Cost ? About £5 per box if you need to buy the scaffold planks - £2 per box otherwise.
LJ
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