Week 17 - Design and label the bottom floor of the hive and build it

Now I am starting on the design of my beehive. This week I am starting to design the floor of the hive and I will also label it. The floor, is arguably one of the most important parts of the hive, this is because it holds everything in place and carries and supports the overall weight of the hive. It is also the location of the hive entrance, this is where the bees enter and exit in order to collect pollen and nectar for the colony to survive. It is also the main source of ventilation to help keep the hive cool and not too hot, during the warmer months. It is also where the tray is located, that collects any debris/rubbish that is discarded by the bees. This is important because if the rubbish left by the bees is dropped directly on the floor outside of the hive, then this will potentially attract predators and any many other threats to the hive's survival, this tray prevents this and allows me to monitor the bees further. In particular, for signs of disease and infection of dead bees.

My early designs of the floor of the hive are illustrated below and labelled:

I have drawn the hive parts out like this as it makes it easier for me when I am cutting the wood as it will clarify what the sizes should be. It also gives someone who isn't experienced with hives, to get a better understanding of the hive and how it is pieced together and will allow a different view of the hive to be seen.

Below here are the pictures of me building the floor of the hive at the different stages:

In this picture I am measuring how long a piece of wood I need, in order to make the frames of the floor fit perfectly together.

I am measuring twice in order to get an exact and precise measurement for the wood as I don't want any mistakes as they will cost time and waste wood.

As the saying goes, 'measure twice, cut once'.

This is me using a square edge tool to get a straight edge for me to cut along. I am using this tool because it is easy to use and helps to prevent me from making an uneven line when cutting the wood and will leave a clean straight finish.

In this picture I have a piece of wood I have just cut, because the wood planks were 220mm wide, the wood I am cutting is below 100mm each. So I am able to get two pieces of wood that are the exact same, out of piece of the plank.

The tool I am using in this picture is a circular saw, that I used to cut all of the wood I used for the hive. This is because it leaves a lot cleaner and better finish that the hand saw would.

Also in the picture the wood I am cutting looks quite short compared to the rest of wood I am cutting, this is because this is an end piece, the actual wood I will use is to the left out of frame.

In this picture you can see some of the pieces of wood I have cut, I have also cut the hive entrance out as well on one of the frames that I will be using at the front of the hive.

In this picture I have already drilled holes into the wood where the screws will be drilled in. I have pre-drilled all of the holes for the screws, this is to prevent splitting the wood, as that would weaken the wood and possibly break it.

I have also drilled a fourth hole in the wood at the bottom, this is because there was a crack in the wood that I had spotted and I put an extra screw in to help stop it from splitting in the future.

Now I am using the wood glue that I purchased to help strengthen the wood further to help them stay joined together for much longer.

I glued every join in the hive with glue to help strengthen it further. 

This is supposed to be a picture of two of the frames screwed and glued together, but I didn't do a good job of taking a picture of it as it does not show clearly the process used.

This is what the floor looks like when all of the frames are put together with the screws and glue I used.

You can also see the hive entrance at the front and the gap at the back that I will use to make a hive tray to catch any unwanted dirt that the bees will drop.

Now I am using the side of an old rabbit cage to get the wire from it to use as a floor for my hive. I will cut out the wire from this so it is separated from the frame and then I can use it.

This is a picture of the wire after I have separated it from the frame, while cutting it out I found it quite difficult to do, as it was very fiddly and time consuming. I also managed to cut my self multiple times on my hand and wrist because of the sharp ends of the wire, I should have used gloves in order to prevent this from happening. 

This is what the wire looks like along the edges where I have joined it to the frame. I wrapped it around another piece of wood because it saved me from cutting into the frame and attaching the wire there, or just attaching the wire to the frame without any support as the support increases the strength of it.

This is what the floor looks like at a distance, you can see that I have two support pieces of wood at each end to further increase the strength of the floor. But I have not put any at the entrance or back of the floor, this is because it would become too challenging to do and there is also no need to do this.

In this photo you can see that I have put another piece of wire above the previous one. This is because the gap on the wire is too big as the bees will just get through the gap or possibly fall through it, and this is not good. Also, other bees or predators like hornets or wasps could fit through the gap and this would have devastating affect on the hive.

As you can see in this photo, this what the floor looks like close up. You can see that gap is now only a quarter of what it was before, this has been done by placing the other wire over the gaps of the first wire so that the gap is now reduced.

This is what the complete floor of the hive looks like with the wire floor. This is now complete and is ready to be used for a hive, apart from the hive entrance (which regulates the amount of bees that can exit and enter the hive at one time) and tray (will catch any unwanted rubbish that is discarded by the bees, and also controls ventilation of the hive ).

While building the floor of the hive I encountered several problems, I had to overcome these problems during construction of the floor to maker it perfect, these were:

1) The wire I used had too big a gap in the wire, as the bees would just crawl

  through it, and it could allow predators or unwanted guests to enter. 

• The solution was to add another layer of wire over the top to reduce the size of the gap - this worked well.

    

2) Another problem is that the hand saw that I was using wasn't leaving a good finish on       the wood and was too time consuming

•   The solution was to use a circular saw that I borrowed off my uncle, and it did leave a much better finish on the wood and was far quicker.

3) Finally, recycling the wire from an old rabbit hutch saved money but was old, brittle and very sharp, as I cut myself a lot with it being so fiddly to do.

• The solution was to wear fencing gloves to protect my hands and this speeded up the process as it was less painful!