is is worth the time/effort??

[barratt_sab]

The hive looks great by the way barratt

Thanks very much

...have you deliberately made the BB wider than the floor and crown board so you can easily fit the 12th frame into it

I wish it was that clever!

I had originally intended to put rebates in the sides and so the ends were a little longer, to sink into the rebates. Then I decided to glue and screw the sides because I needed the kit rather sooner that I had expected, and in my haste I forgot to shave the extra off.

By the time I'd spotted the error, they weren't coming apart again, so they are as they are!

There isn't enough room for an extra frame but having struggled to get frames covered in bees back into a full broad box, I'm not too unhappy about having a little more room to work with. If it proves too troublesome, I guess I'll have to use a dummy board.

...and your son looks a master beekeeper in the making.

Well, he earned his bees yesterday. We were looking through a nuc box to find the queen (which we managed) when my wife pointed behind me and said "Errr..."

I turned round in time to see a prime swarm leaving the hive behind me. We followed it until it settled and got the box and sheet to recapture it. It was on a difficult branch, but we got most of them into the box and upturned it on the sheet propped on a stick. My son and I then sat and watched to see if the bees were going in or out - they didn't seem sure which direction they were going in.

Then suddenly he said "here she is", and picked up our marked queen from the long grass by the side of the sheet!

Ahh to have the eyesight of an 11 year old again.

One other observation it’s a good idea to machine a slight slope to the bottom rails it stops water sitting on the top of the rail.

Yes - another casualty of too many bees needing boxes and not enough time. I have sealed the tops of the bottom rails with PVA and then put a layer of filler over the top to give it a slight slope, but it's not as good as it should be. It's not helped by the fact that both rails were two-piece rather than one piece.

To be perfectly honest, whilst it did save me a bit of money compared to buying hives in the flat, the real reason I went DIY was because we needed the kit in a hurry (yes, of course we were caught out ) and I knew we'd be very lucky to get a purchased hive delivered in time.

Neither the hives or the maker are Chippendales, but I hope they'll see us right for a year or two.

 

[barratt_sab]

...and don't look too closely at the frame rails... which were another casualty of the need for hives surpassing the time to make them.

I had ordered some rails from a supplier that we've used before along with some other things that we needed, but they still haven't reached us because one of the other items was out of stock.

I have now discovered that the metal reinforcements from IKEA Ivar shelves are exactly the right size to screw in and use as frame rails.

 

[moby]

I've got a thread or two on the subject!

Cedar vs Ply. I don't think there is any point in the amateur making Cedar hives, unless you have a line on cheap Cedar. I priced making a super, and it wasn't a lot more to go to a supplier and get them flat pack. Ply is very much worth doing - you can get 5 14 x 12 broods out of an 8 x 4 sheet of ply that costs £40. Nothing to stop you making Cedar hives, just don't expect to save loads of money. 18mm ply suits all of the existing plans, no need to adapt. I use the ones on scottish bee keepers.

If it isn't going to drive you mad, you need to set up a production run. Get an 8x4 sheet and turn it into supers - about 20 of them. Setting up the table saw is the hard bit, chopping up the wood is easy.

If you haven't got a BIG table saw, and most of us haven't, get the sheets cut down when you buy them - handling an 8x4 sheet is hard. Another option is a track saw. I'm lucky enough to have a Festool saw and track which can slice up an 8x4 sheet to millimeter accuracy with little effort. Festool is pricey (but good), there are loads of other options.

A router is pretty much essential if you are going to make good copies of hives. You can get away without routing the rebates in the side walls, but you'll need a router, and small router table for the lugs. You don't need anything flash, any cheap router table and low powered router will do for machining pine.

Clamps. Lots of clamps. I need 6 to get a single 14 x12 brood body properly straight in glue up. 4 for national broods and supers.

Overall, it sounds like you could do this, the only thing you need is a router and table - which can be had for not a lot. Beware though, woodwork is addictive, and you'll be perusing bizarre machinery catalogues in no time.

Rae

How do you cut up your 8' x 4' to get 5 12x14 brood boxes, I have tried many ways to plan a cutting list and I can only get 4.5 brood boxes?

 

[rae]

I recall I was cutting across the board, you can just squeak 3 cuts of "long width - 18 1/8" and 2 widths of "short", then convert some of the wides to short. One of the runs was a couple of mm too narrow, but close enough. I'm using a narrow kerf blade in the track saw - about 1/3 the width of a normal table saw, so I'm probably saving a cm over all of the cuts.

 

[rae]

Post above was rubbish, I've worked out how I did it.

The wide board of a box is 460 mm, given that the 8x4 is 2400 mm long, you can get 3 cuts across the board, yielding 5 boards.

You then have 5 boards, 460mm wide and 1219 mm long. Each board will yield 2 big sides of 460 x 315 mm, and 2 small sides of <460 x 291mm. As long as you use a narrow kerf blade, it works. Using a chunky table saw will mean that you are a mil or two short.

 

[moby]

Post above was rubbish, I've worked out how I did it.

The wide board of a box is 460 mm, given that the 8x4 is 2400 mm long, you can get 3 cuts across the board, yielding 5 boards.

You then have 5 boards, 460mm wide and 1219 mm long. Each board will yield 2 big sides of 460 x 315 mm, and 2 small sides of <460 x 291mm. As long as you use a narrow kerf blade, it works. Using a chunky table saw will mean that you are a mil or two short.

I have been working to 460 x 315 when making my brood boxes I saw an ealier post with an attached cutting plan and theirs were 460 x 312 which is the correct measurement?

 

[rae]

Dunno, but I have been using 315. Don't think the bees mind overly!