Undoubtedly, the invention of such a device as a collapsible frame-based hive was a real breakthrough in an area such as beekeeping. The production of beehives was introduced into practice by the famous Russian and Ukrainian scientist P. I. Prokopovich. Until then, people had no idea how to organize the work of insects, and the procedure for collecting honey led to the ruin of the nests from which the honeycombs broke out.
The design should be extensive enough for the reproduction and supply of honey, as well as unified so as not to disturb the bees during its assembly and disassembly.
DIY hives can be made by any craftsman. The technology is not particularly difficult and does not require certain skills.
Material selection
The optimal materials for beehives are these trees:
This takes into account the moisture content of the material. It must be thoroughly dried. The humidity coefficient should be no higher than 15%.
Making hives with your own hands requires the selection of quality wood. Do not buy boards with cracks, rot, knots and wormholes. Pore material is also not recommended. Its use is possible only for facing work.
The basic principles in the manufacture of beehives
Making beehives at home assumes the following rules:
- Details for the future product should be smoothly planed. No burrs or nicks are allowed. The cut points should be at right angles to the longitudinal edges.
- It must be ensured that when stitching the housings, the cut on the core side is outside.
- Planks are connected with nails. Their thickness is selected in order to avoid splitting of the material.
- Cracks may form on dried wood. To avoid this, it is recommended that the outside walls of the hives be primed with drying oil. Light shade paint is added to it: white, blue or yellow.
- Making houses for bees can be done from boards of any width. The inside walls are recommended to be made of one continuous board or of two, which are connected by a tongue or groove. The outer casing can be made of gaps of any size. They must be located at different levels.
- Do-it-yourself hives are made according to the patterns. Drawings are of paramount importance. Without them, it will be very difficult for the master to imagine what he is doing.
Possible deviations from the sizes
With a process such as making hives with your own hands, dimensions, drawings must be accurate. The possible deviation is 1 mm, according to the scheme. If it will have a larger indicator, then an additional fit will be required.
Increase the life of hives
Manufacturing technology of hives has its own characteristics. But the devices require further care. If you want the design to serve you for many years, you must adhere to a number of rules:
- use only quality material;
- paint the hive outside every 2-3 years.
How to make a beehive?
Making bee hives with your own hands has a lot of advantages. The service life of this design is at least 10 years. You save money and enjoy the work done.
In a case such as making hives do-it-yourself sizes planks are very important. In beekeeping, they often resort to the manufacture of a double-walled model of 16 frames. Dimensions of the frame are 435x300 mm.
Making hives involves the following steps:
- First of all, the inner walls of the house (the back, front and side parts) are cut. The thickness of the boards is 2 cm. They are assembled like shields. They are connected by means of dowel or casein glue. The size of the back and front shields is 605x320 mm, and the side - 530x320 mm. In the sidewalls, grooves are selected. Their depth is 5 mm and their width is 20 mm. The distance between the grooves is 450 mm.
- Next, proceed to the manufacture of the rear and front outer walls. They are assembled into temporary structures in the form of shields. The thickness of the boards is 15 mm. The size of the shields is 675x500 mm. Lateral external walls have dimensions of 560x500 mm. Each board of an external wall is beaten separately. Fitting to the location is important here. The internal walls glued with casein glue are fixed with temporary overlays on nails. All corners should be straight and the bottom edge should be horizontal.
- In the case, which consists only of internal walls and does not have a bottom, a lower notch is made. Its size is 10x250 mm. It starts at 50 mm from the right side of the hive. The letok, located on top, has a size of 10x100 mm. It is located at a distance of 120 mm from the right side of the hive, and in height - 30 mm from the extreme side of the frame bars located on top.
- In the back wall of the hive, a wedge-shaped hole is made at the bottom level. It goes into the space under the frame, which is necessary to protect against varroatosis. It is closed by a liner of a similar shape. Its size is 450x40 mm (inner side) and 450x45 mm (outer side).
- The openings of the slots contribute to the enclosure from the space between the walls of the hive with small corridors based on planks. Their thickness is 10-15 mm, and their width is 20 mm between the walls.
- The first layer of boards constituting the floor (their length is 635 mm) is nailed to the case, which has only internal walls, parallel to the front one. The first board protrudes 10-15 mm ahead of the redistribution of the structure. Platforms for arrivals are mounted on the ledge. In this case, the straightness of the angles between the bottom and the walls of the house is checked. Then, observing the accuracy, the boards of the first floor layer are nailed, while the wall space should not be blocked. A sheet of ruberoid or cardboard is placed on the first layer of the floor, and then the bottom layer is nailed. It covers the space between the walls of the hive.
- On the area of the ends of the walls located inside (protrude by 20 mm), the outer front and outer back walls are nailed. Work begins at the bottom of the hive. Each board is beaten alternately. The end of each bar should also protrude 20 mm. In parallel, the walls are insulated. In the first front wall, a summer door is being made. In the back wall, a hole is cut into the space under the frame.
- So that the outer walls are stable, in the area forming the side above the nest, the boards are nailed from the outside to the corner plates. On the ends of the rear and front walls, which protrude 20 mm beyond the limit of the side inner parts, the side outer parts are packed. Their thickness is 15 mm.
- On the inner walls of the hive, strips 40x20 mm in size are nailed around the entire perimeter, which overlap the space between the walls with the upper part.
- In the strips that are nailed on the front and back of the device, 10x10 mm folds are selected in order to frame. The planks should fit snugly against the insulation in the space between the walls, and with angular splices - merge into a single plane line.
How to make insulation?
To warm the space between the walls resort to the use of various materials.
For example, in the manufacture of the hive, an even layer of sphagnum moss can be laid out on the inner wall and pressed tightly against the outer wall. Moss is not dried, but dried. It is inherent in elasticity.
You can also apply polystyrene sheets. Their thickness for the above construction should be 22 mm. They are also placed on the inner walls.
They also resort to the use of building insulating boards, as well as soft porous cardboard, whose thickness is 12 mm. Slabs or cardboard are cut into the shape of the walls and pressed against the boards from the outside.
The use of tow, wool, or wool as a heater is not recommended, as these materials do not allow air to pass through and often contain odors.
Making a hive roof
The roof of the hive should be lightweight. The beekeeper often removes and puts it on. To ensure that these procedures are performed without the help of outsiders, the design should not be bulky.
The height of the roof lining is 120 mm. It is assembled from boards with a thickness of 15 mm. Free space forms above the nest under the roof. Its height is 240 mm (120 mm side under the nest and 120 mm - roof trim). In this space there is a store on a half-frame, and a warming pillow is placed on top. It is located on top of the nest between the sides on the canvas covering the frames. The pillow should fit snugly.
The pillow and pillowcase are large compared to 70-100 mm compared with the double-hull space. Therefore, the recommended pillowcase sizes are 750x538 mm, and the thickness after stuffing is 70-100 mm.
A pillow is laid on the nesting frames. It is laid between the sides. It contributes to the conservation of heat. This is especially important in the spring, after the first flyby, when the lack of heat becomes fatal in the northwestern region, where spring bees grow.
Pillow material selection
The best and cheapest pillow material is moss. But many beekeepers are of the opinion that moss as a warming is not suitable both in the pillow and in the side walls. Pillows, in their opinion, are prone to upset. As a result of this, an empty space is formed in which it will always penetrate, since the insert board also does not differ in tightness. The microclimate in the hive suffers.
Instead of moss, an option is offered from plates or polystyrene. Such designs are extremely warm.
The size of the board for the passage of bees is 8-10 mm. It is important that winter insulation is used along with ventilation. Good insulation is required, as we said, in the spring.
The hive can be constructed on the basis of 12 and 14 frames. Then the indicator of its internal length will be 450 and 530 mm. Therefore, an increase in the size of other parts is also necessary.
For greater clarity, when making hives, it is advised to resort to the use of drawings. They will greatly facilitate your work.
Production of polystyrene beehives
Each beekeeper, seeking to improve his apiary, is looking for modern drawings and materials. Innovative designs include hives made of polystyrene foam. The material has thermal conductivity and lightness.
Conservative beekeepers will not exchange a tree hive for any other construction. In their opinion, there is nothing more practical than making beehives from wood. But not one material is absolutely perfect.
The advantage of polystyrene beehives
The design has a number of advantages:
- it turns out a house, characterized by silence and strength;
- hives are not subject to hypothermia or overheating;
- cases can be made the same size and swap them;
- there are few allowances in the design;
- the hives do not leak moisture and do not crack;
- they are not present chips and notches;
- they are durable and comfortable;
- easy to disassemble;
- protect insects from bad weather;
- provide microclimate stability for bees;
- polystyrene foam is not subject to decay;
- the walls of the body are inherently smooth;
- no additional insulation with canvases and pillows is required.
It should also be noted that the house is easy to make yourself. His drawings are quite simple. This design is economical. But many beekeepers note that the implementation of such a house with their own hands is somewhat difficult.
Cons of such facilities
There are a number of minuses in a similar design:
- Internal seam parts do not have a fortress.
- Cases of propolis are difficult to clean.
- In beehives made of wood, you can disinfect using lamps, but here you can’t do this. You will need chemicals that can be harmful to insects and disrupt the construction itself. Some beekeepers resort to washing hives with water or alkaline products. For example, ash from sunflower tops is used.
- The case does not absorb moisture, it flows to the bottom of the structure.
- In polystyrene beehives, the amount of feed eaten by bees increases. If the bee family is strong, then it produces up to 25 kg of honey. This requires ventilation, which reduces feed intake.
- The hive is more suitable for weak insect families.
- Due to the impossibility of regulation of the letlets, the bees begin to steal honey from each other, the microclimate is disturbed. It is possible that rodents infiltrated there.
What tools will be needed?
The manufacture of hives from polystyrene foam requires the following tools:
- pencil or felt-tip pen;
- self-tapping screws (5 cm and 7 cm);
- glue;
- stationery knife;
- meter line of metal;
- screwdriver;
- plastic angles for finishing (to begin with, they are glued into the folds, so that when the frame is removed, the material is not painted).
Manufacturing recommendations
It is important to carefully make hives with your own hands. Dimensions, drawings should be clearly outlined. Expanded polystyrene is brittle.
There should be no gaps, as light rays can begin to penetrate between the walls of the case, and insects will begin to bite the hole. As a result, an additional tap hole is formed.
All tools should be at hand. The clerical knife should be well sharpened.
A durable ventilation mesh is placed in the bottom, which corresponds to mesh sizes of not more than 3.5 mm. An excellent choice would be a grid for tuning a car made of aluminum.
Manufacturing steps
For the manufacture of structures made of expanded polystyrene, a drawing is used. Everything must be pre-marked.
- A knife is taken and along the marked lines, observing a right angle, it is carried out several times until the plate is cut through to the end. This is how the workpieces are made.
- The surfaces to be glued are coated with glue and tightly compressed. Fasten parts using self-tapping screws. Make fasteners with a deviation of 10 cm.
Reviews of beekeepers about polystyrene structures
It should be noted that the feedback from people experienced in beekeeping is rather negative than positive.
- According to many, the independent manufacture of such houses is difficult, since the material is constantly breaking.
- When cleaning the case, polystyrene foam is subject to destruction.
- The material is subject to rapid wear. We have to resort to sealing up cracks with propolis.
- In winter, food quickly spoils in such a hive.
- The sunbed becomes damp and is covered with a layer of mold. Therefore, a net is required.
- Expanded polystyrene maintains a constant temperature.
- The design should not hit anything.
- For bees, natural material is acceptable, which is wood. In nature, they are used to hollows. Wood is much stronger and more useful for the production of honey.
- Many complain that much light enters such houses.
- They cannot be painted, as the material is sensitive to solvent.
- Disinfection of the hive with a burner is not possible, and larvae often penetrate such a structure.
In Europe, the manufacture of beehives for polystyrene bees has gained wide popularity. Beekeepers consider the choice of this material a good solution. There have long since moved away from the use of wood, which also has its drawbacks.