Plywood hive

[Hombre]

Rowley Regis, even nearer.

 

[THE DOG]

Wow, and heres me thinking i had to travel miles to meet fellow Bee keepers.

Im in Causway green

Doug

 

[plumber]

I build my own ply hives, what I do is use a hardwood lipping
to the edges of the two sides thus avoiding any exposed ply
edges. use a cascamite type glue waterproof and gap filling.

 

[Brian Bush]

Cutting sheets

Hi I build all my own hives from 18mm wb ply. I have some cutting sheets available if you drop me a pm.

 

[THE DOG]

Thanks for the tips guys, i have to say how impressed i am at the advice and help offered to a novice, it makes all the difference. THANKYOU.

Thanks BB, PM SENT

Doug

 

[Skyhook]

WARMER !! WARMER!!

You will have those northerners calling us soft,this weather is tropical to them.

I went to Buxton last weekend, how do people live up there? It was really chilly!

 

[MODNOD]

I went to Buxton last weekend, how do people live up there? It was really chilly!

They cluster

 

[nonstandard]

I was in Buxton last weekend too, it was positively tropical for the time of year

 

[Brian Bush]

Cutting sheets

Hi Beeks
I have sent copies of the plywood cutting sheets to those who requested and provided their private e-mail. I have not been able to acertain how to add attachments to pm on this forum and also have been unable to load my word documents as an album.
If anyone wants copies of the sheets please feel free to e-mail me either by pm or at [email protected].
I always butt the joints, use external pva glue from Wickes and screw using pilot holes and 60-70mm multi-thread screws from screwfix.
I like to treat the wood with clear wood preserver (Wickes) and then often paint with undercoat or gloss. Last year I used sadolin opaque white for the first time and was most impressed. I like them to be white or pale blue as it adds a bit of colour to a dull world.

 

[madasafish]

I went to Buxton last weekend, how do people live up there? It was really chilly!

Hmm
I was brought up where it's really cold in winter.. not warm like Buxton.

How about 4 metre high snowdrifts outside your back door.. and staying for months? (North of Aberdeen)

Buxton people are soft..

 

[rae]

i use cedar broods [they live there 24/7] but make ply supers for the summer flow,

That is exactly what I have done. I have 6 cedar hives (hopefully I will still have 6 colonies in March 2011...), and I have made up a load of supers out of 18mm shuttering ply with pine edges/handles. They look identical to the Thornes supers. I will also make up a load of nuc/brood boxes for swarm season.

The cost of the super is about £4, and the cost of the brood will be about £8 in materials. I don't worry about the thermal or moisture aspects, as these will only be used in spring/summer.

 

[providence wayne]

Pine is more expensive myply hives seem to be doing the trick

 

[nemphlar]

A note from the north, my first hives were marine ply and 25 years later still in use, I prefer my cedar hives acquired second hand mainly for weight and prettier.

 

[fredbloggs]

my first hives were marine ply and 25 years later still in use,

This says it all. If you put the effort in (if you have the inclination) plus the time, tools, patience, budget etc to make an excellent job, the result will last longer. This is a basic concept that applies beyond bee-keeping. To clear up a point, shuttering ply is WBP - just an inferior grade. Ply is graded a,b,c etc on each face, the reason being that some applications need two good faces but in most scenarios, one face can be a lower quality (ie wall covering?) There is also the situation that lower quality ply has gaps in the layers that only become evident when you rip it and expose those flaws? I've had sheets from a wood merchant (as opposed to a DIY store) that I have ripped to a plan (obviously to avoid waste) and whilst they look great on the faces they have been crap on the cut surfaces with numerous long deep voids. These voids can seriously affect the integrity of the structure, such that when moved sideways on the hive ( as you do) the face surface (which might only be one layer) can split away.

The obvious answer is to take the bits back to the retailer and demand a refund. The route I have followed in the past has been to line all the exposed edges with a (10mm) sealing edge. A lot of fiddly inconvenience but I should reap the reward in a longer life (the boxes not me)

Which is the point I made when I started

I thenk yew

BTW

the best ply I have ever seen was some beech lined, mahogany ply, school benches ( rescued from a skip, yes) They spent 10 years on an allotment in the open and have just been made into sparrow bird-boxes. Ripped up a dozen of them and not a single flaw in the construction of the ply.

Caveat Emptor
,

 

[Baggyone]

Best ply i've seen was maple faced. Awesome stuff but you are looking at interior decorative grades.

 

[betterbee]

Very interested in your making plywood hives. New beekeeper, no posts yet.
I'll give you a pm now.

 

[wojciech]

"Build It" book by Joe Jacobs

To save time, I've copied a post that I put into a thread under the hive DIY building section regarding detailed and simple instructions on building a hive from exterior ply :

"Build It" Book
As a beginner, I would commend this book by Joe Jacobs published by the Good Life Press, which contains a chapter on building a BS Nat, a Nat Nuc and a TBH, using 18mm ply. The design is very much simplified so that you use butt joints nailed and I found that getting a timber merchant to saw a sheet of WBH ext 18 mm ply plus pieces of planed softwood for the bars resulted in hives coming in at less than 20 pounds each. I've since bought some more ply in a special promotion by Jacksons at half the price and this winter I'll be sawing the ply myself using a circular saw. The result from my first attempt was not pretty but quite functional.

Good luck with your endeavours.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Very interested in your making plywood hives. New beekeeper, no posts yet.
I'll give you a pm now.

welcome to the forum better Bee


for cheap Supers, i make them of 12mm and 18mm ply to the old BS National double wall type that is pre BS National modifeid design . this double walled design had a double wall shoulder rather than the Modified BS National's top and bottom rebated L shaped bars

I cut 2X460x150 x12mm and 2x436x150x18mm sides and make a butt jointed 460 square box

I then cut the frames shoulder walls of 2x424x126x18 and 2x424x132x12

I construct the shoulder wall of one 18mmand one 12mm part so the 12mm part forms a 6mm frame bearing on the internal side of the shoulder

I glue and screw the shoulders in to the 460mm box and square it up and leave to set

once set i drill two 32mm hand holes in the outer skin 12mm wall of both double walled shoulder ends

They can be made with just a circular saw with no need to fiddle about to cut out rebates in the top and bottom bars

ok a bit heavier but you could use the same method to construct a double walled pre modified BS national in ply