…aka building my first nucleus hive. So I had a piece of wood lying about and a penchant to have a go at making a nucleus hive. I started with the easy bit, making the box; just screwed butt joints for now. I’ll get round to building things using finger joints.
With a bit of light chiselling I made a simple rabbet for the frames to sit on, using a bit of trial and error for sizing, using a commercial brood frame for dimensions.
With a bit of ply making a crown board was fairly simple, making a frame and popping the board on top.
Making the roof was a similar affair, I also added spacers to rise the roof above the crown board to allow for ventilation, and wedges down the side to keep the roof centred on the hive.
The floor for this was and interesting one; rather than an entrance at the front I’ve gone for an entrance below leading up to to the wire mesh floor. I’ll tell you how I get on with that one. As for the mite tray, I figured as the whole thing will be pretty light, I can just lift the hive and place the corex board underneath.
The usual 5 frames fit in nicely leaving just a little space for manipulation.
And there we go, job done. Well just short of a stretch of roofing felt to keep out the rain and probably a lick of paint for the rest of the box too.