I am hoping to build a permanent observation hive. I have a 6'x4' shed in the garden which I can use solely for housing the hive. I've painted the interior white and fitted a 4' LED light.
I can't find (free) DIY plans on the web. I have Frank Linton's book which describes options but has little info on DIY construction. So I'm thinking along these lines:
- four Standard National deep frames stacked in a single column (with the lugs chopped down a bit!)
- bee space 8mm between top and bottom of frames, ends of frames and inner sides of hive, and the top bars of frames and glass sides
- 35mm space between floor and bottom frame
- safety / toughened glass (not acrylic) on both sides, held in a strong but narrow frame to allow maximum visibility
- framed glass sides that lift off for access to inside the hive (rather than hinged)
- 50mm PIR panels to insulate (and darken) the hive
- entrance / exit of flexible clear pipe ~25mm bore
- one or two mesh covered openings for ventilation; for the bees to ventilate the hive through a 1 metre pipe might be a bit of a drag!
- options for contact feeder as an extension of floor beyond one of the sides, or above the top.
I'm not confident that a single column of frames will allow clustering sufficient for the bees to survive over winter - even though the same number of frames might be fine in a nuc.
I don't think there's much about observation hives here - apart from some horror stories about sealed temporary observation hives.
Any comments, suggestions, sources etc gratefully received.
