Week 10 - How to make a Hive (measurements)

Construction of floor


These measurements are for the hive floor that I will be building. Above I have given the exact measurement and the name for each one of the pieces and what it will be used for. These measurements I have are the same used to make the standard national hives that you can buy.

The image to the right is of what the floor will look like from a top view and side view when it is completed. I got these pictures from the same website that I got these measurements from and this will help give an example of what it should look like when completed.

http://dave-cushman.net/bee/natfloor.html

Construction of brood box





These measurements are of the brood box that I will be making for all the brood (baby bees) that will be laid by the Queen bee in the frames in the brood box.

Again, this picture on the left is what the brood box will look like from a top view and side view when it is completed.

 http://dave-cushman.net/bee/natbrood.html




Construction of super





These measurements again are of all the different sizes of all the different parts that will be used to make the super (where honey is stored).

Again this picture on the left is what the hive will look like from a top and side view.

http://dave-cushman.net/bee/natsup.html



Construction of crown board




 Same again, these measurements are the exact sizes of the different parts that will make up the crown board (top of the hive). 

Again the picture on the left is what the crown board will look like when made and will help me give a better idea of what the hive should look like.

http://dave-cushman.net/bee/natcrown.html


Construction of roof




These measurements are for the construction of the roof of the hive that will sit on top of the hive to keep it protected.

http://dave-cushman.net/bee/rroof.html







Drawings of National Bee Hive Component Parts (dave-cushman.net)

Measurements of my hive

In this picture on the left, you can see the measurements I got from my hives at home.

When building my hive I wanted the measurements to be as accurate as they could be, so this is why I got them online from a beekeepers website so I can be sure that they were tried and tested.

But I then realised that these measurements were different to my beehives at home. This is a problem because most beekeepers use different parts of hives on different hives. I am sure that I will do the same, so this is why I got the measurements from my wooden hive at home and why I will most likely use these measurements for my build.

At the top, of the picture, you can see I have the two lengths of the hive frame of either the super, brood box, floor, crown board or the roof. 18inch roughly works out to be 457mm. 


You can see in the picture to the right I have decided to order 6 boards of cedarwood. This is because I believe it will be easier to cut the lengths and depths of the wood by myself instead of getting someone else to do it.

I also thought that if I made a mistake with the measurements when ordering the wood, I wouldn't be able to use it, as it had already been cut.

This is why I believe that it would be safer for me to cut the wood.






How this helped me?
This helped me to understand further the need of precise measurements for the different parts of the hive. I can now therefore use these figures, as it will be much easier to build the hive more accurately. Before I came across these measurements I had only a book on how to build a beehive, but it was aimed at the American market, so all the measurements are different to what I have researched because the numbers are stated in inches instead of millimetres. This would have made my build a bit more challenging and could cause room for errors to be made. Now I won't have to rely on that book as a sole reference as I have found these measurements on a very informative and accurate website that has helped me many times, for when I am unsure about something. But, it is unlikely that I will use these measurements because this website is very very old and some of the measurements may be out dated, so It is likely that I will use the measurements from my own beehive to use.

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