Hive Construction

If you are keeping up with dates, we are now up to the last two weeks of August, 2022. It was a very busy month. 

After enough frames were completed to at least get us started, it was time to start hive construction. I followed this plan as much as practical https://horizontalhive.com/how-to-build/best-beehive-stand.shtml. The author of the plans really loves measuring down to 1/32nd of an inch. Not really doable when using a circular saw for most of the cuts.

The most efficient use of the plans was to purchase 4 pieces of 11/32 inch plywood and cut them into pieces that would have the parts for 3 hives. We, Linda and I, obtained the plywood at Menards^®. I’m not sure if I can recommend this store for lumber purchases. Very little help in locating the plywood, no help in loading, and no one available to help cut the plywood down to size. That being said, perhaps they were having a bad day. Who knows?

It took most of the next day to cut out the parts. My cutting skills were not like they used to be. In fact it was so bad that during assembly some pieces were not usable. I also found out how bad the blade was on the circular saw. It was pretty burned up. That prompted us to obtain new blades for both the circular saw and the table saw. 

We found a good selection with good prices at Lowe’s. On most items with the exception of wiring, lumber, items already discounted, and appliances there is a 10% military discount. Always appreciated.

One of the premises of this type of hives is that the walls and bottom contain 1 1/2 inches of insulation. Which is also one of the reasons they are very heavy. The plan calls for using raw wool as insulation. This could not be obtained at a reasonable cost. Our son Curtis had some left over 3/4 foam insulation. This is what we used to insulate the first hive. 

Construction is fairly straight forward, which is not to say that we made no mistakes. Fortunately, most were fixed using a generous amount of caulk. 

I will say that construction is a two person –minimum — process. Often, there was more to hold than hands to do it. And that is with the liberal use of clamps. 

Hive construction pictures

It took us about 8 hours to assemble the first hive. There were several missteps along the way, but it came out pretty well.

More hive construction pictures

The more we worked on the hives, the better at we became. Hive construction went on and off for the rest of the year and into the new year. We built a total of 3 hives.

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