Built my beehive!!!

[jettgirl24]

I get my bees on April 16th so I thought I would get on building the hive! I built a top bar hive. I mostly finished it - just need to cut out the door for the bees, paint it, and built the roof! I'm pretty proud of myself cuz I built it without any help from my BF (although I think he was a little bummed I didn't wait for him to get home

Turns out he actually wanted to help)! All in all it cost me $40 and has taken about two hours to build so far. I'm guessing it'll probably take me another 2 hours to put the roof together and tack the comb starter strips to the bars.

Side view w/o any bars in

Front/Top view w/o any bars in

Top view w/ a few of the bars in

Top view w/ most of the bars in (I ended up being short two bars, gotta get one more piece of wood

)

 

[redhen]

Do the bars have frames on them? Just trying to picture how it works...
I want to start bees.. but i cant afford to buy a hive..we want too build our own...

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

Redhen, if you are looking for top-bar hive plans, check out this link:

http://www.beesource.com/resources/...gns/top-bar-hive-construction-dennis-murrell/

It includes pictures of the insides and the bees inside as well.

Beesource.com also has plans for the Langstroth hive and the WBC hive and all the other equipment you need--screened bottom boards, etc. They have an excellent forum with lots of experienced beekeepers, too.

HTH


Rusty

 

[jettgirl24]

Redhen - they don't have frames like the langstroth hives and cost much less (around $40 as opposed to several hundred $). They are much easier to build too. You can use different things as starter strips for the comb but im using champher (sp?) strip (used for concrete spacing) cuz its cheap. You could also use 1/4 round. You just attach it to the bottom of each bar and it gives them a place to start building their comb, then they build it naturally from there. Apparently there are many benefits to this - mainly varying bee sizes which helps them fight mites. You don't have quite as much honey production in top bar hives compared to langstroth but its still good - around 30 - 40 lbs per hive in your second year from what I've been told. You do get more wax though which I'm excited about cuz I want to make soap, candles, etc. This is my first foray into bees but so far the top bar hives have been much easier to wrap my mind around as a beginner.