How to make do-it-yourself hive frames

The end of the annual beekeeping season forces the beekeepers to “migrate” from their locations to home workshops equipped in garages or other utility rooms. This happens for a completely understandable reason. In late autumn and winter, bees are in the club and require minimal attention from the owners. Therefore, the manufacture of frames for beehives with their own hands is necessary, with rare exceptions, precisely in the autumn-winter period.

The content of the article

  • 1 What you need to work
  • 2 About sizes
  • 3 From blank to finished frame
  • 4 Special devices
    • 4.1 Metal conductor
  • 5 The value of the bushings

What you need to work

It is inconvenient to assemble this beekeeping equipment exclusively with a saw, jigsaw and hammer. It will take a lot of time and effort – labor costs will be unreasonably high.

The first thing you need in a home beekeeping workshop is a quality woodworking machine. With sufficient knowledge and skill, you can assemble a machine of your own production or use a multifunctional factory model or a small household unit, as in the photo below.

You can read about it here:

Homemade woodworking frame machine

Which machine to choose for making beehives

In the examples given, most of the machines are universal in their technical characteristics – they are suitable both for the manufacture of bee houses and hive frames.

About sizes

Domestic beekeepers most often use three frame sizes:

  • 435 by 300 – in dadans and sunbeds, except for Ukrainian;
  • 435 to 230 – in Ruta hives (multi-hull);
  • 435 by 145 – in store extensions or hives on the 145th frame, equipped exclusively with low-wide cases.

You can assemble such frames for beehives with your own hands using the corresponding drawings, which we gave in a separate article:

How to make hive frames

And today we will consider their step-by-step production.

From blank to finished frame

The production of frames for hives begins with the preparation of lumber – the boards are passed through a thickness gauge.

surface gage

In the example shown, the side strips for honeycomb frames for Dadant-Blatt hives are 37 mm wide at the top and 8 mm thick. The top bar is 470 in length, 22 in thickness and 22-25 mm in width. The same width for the bottom bar and the side strips at the bottom.

drawing

The boards passed through the thickness gauge are dismissed on a circular saw in accordance with the length of the future parts and their number.

circular

After that, the workpieces are cut into strips.

How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames

Then the side strips are processed on the cutter – 12-15 mm are removed at the bottom. The shoulders remain at the top according to the drawing. On the 145th frames, hangers can be omitted!

How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames

A blank is made for the upper bars – a cut is made under the projections to be placed on the folds in the hive, and then the blank is dissolved on a circular for the desired width of the parts.

billet for bars

Up to 8 honeycomb frames can be made in 10-1 hours of work. This time includes the processing of boards with a thickness gauge, sawing into blanks, making parts and assembling them.

Fastening ready-made elements with wood glue and self-tapping screws will be more reliable than knocking down with nails, although it will take a little longer. It is recommended to use an electric screwdriver to speed up the process. Or a pneumatic stapler with a long staple – then you can refuse glue.

Special devices

If home production is put on stream, special tools are needed to make frames for beehives. The most popular of these is the board assembly jig. In appearance, it resembles a box without a top and bottom. The internal dimensions of which are selected depending on the number of products collected at a time.

For example, if you install ten honeycomb frames with 37 mm sidewalls, you will need a conductor width of 373 mm (a small margin of 3 mm is made to freely install blanks and take out assembled products). The length of the conductor is equal to the width of the frames. For the standard Ruth, Dadan and the store extension for them – this is 435 mm (the bars will be higher than the conductor, you do not need to take into account their length).

In the side walls of the jig, grooves are made for installing the holding bars. The distance between the bar and the wall of the conductor is equal to the thickness of the sidewalls of the frames, which will be inserted into this gap.

In the given example, ten blanks are inserted into the resulting fasteners on both sides of the jig. They should enter rather tightly, without hanging out after installation.

installation of planks

Further, the upper bars are inserted into the lugs of the side plates and two self-tapping screws are screwed in at each end of the part.

Then the jig is turned over, and the lower bars are attached in a similar way.

If you do not make eyelets, you will have to attach a stop to the jig, it will fix the upper and lower bars in the desired position during assembly!

Metal conductor

Another option for the device is a metal profile structure.

from metal

General scheme of work:

  1. The installed workpieces are clamped using a side bolt, that is, such a jig does not require the manufacture of lugs in the side rails and bars.
  2. After assembling the upper bars and sidewalls, the bolt is released – the mount moves lower and is fixed again.
  3. With effort, the blanks of the lower blocks are inserted (like spacers between the sidewalls of the frames). They are also attached with a pneumatic stapler.

In the gallery below you can see the step-by-step assembly:

How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames How to make do-it-yourself hive frames

At the last stage, the fastening bolts are loosened – the finished honeycomb frames are removed from the jig. It takes about 10-15 minutes to make 17 pieces.

The value of the bushings

When pulling the wire, you should not neglect the bushings – special devices resembling “eyelets” for the production of furniture.

They are installed in the side strips at the puncture points and serve to protect the wood from damage. Bushings for the frames of the hive do not allow the wire to deform the holes, cut into the strips – the sheets of foundation do not lose their original shape during operation.

You need to protect any soft species, including linden, which is considered the highest quality tree for hives!

bushings

The bushings resemble mushrooms in shape, equipped with a cap and a through hole. Manufacturers produce products suitable for all wire sizes used in the beekeeping industry.

Their cap is necessarily rounded, not capable of damaging the wire when pulled. The entire product is coated with a rust and corrosion prevention coating.

The packaging depends on the manufacturer. In 100 grams, there are about 1-000 bushings. And such a package costs about 1 rubles.

You can read about wire pulling and wire pulling here:

How to impose frames – using effective homemade products

We pull the wire correctly – homemade products for working with frames

As you can see, there is nothing difficult in assembling the hive frames with your own hands. The use of a jig and a pneumatic stapler significantly speeds up the manufacturing process. And the bushings make the product more reliable in operation. They are installed using a special hole punch.

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Anna Evans

Author ✓ Farmer

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