So I built my first hive floor this evening, and used my table saw for the first time. All in all I can honestly say I think it was a success.
I drew up some quick rough sketches of how I would build it. There weren’t too much in the way of measurements and everything was done by eye. I started with an entrance block that I bought a while ago and worked out everything to fit to that. Well that and the dimensions of a national super.
I had some cedar bits that were someone’s offcuts they threw away. They did a great job and it is a nice wood to work with, apart from the orange dust.
imageI cut some nice slots with the table saw for the mesh to sit in and the corex board to slide into when I wanted to do varroa counts
imageI cut out a channel in a ‘back door’ and cut corex board to fit that and the slots in the assembled floor then just glued it in. Amazingly the table saw has a handy dimension to its blade; it is just the right width to cut slots that are the thickness of the mesh and the corex, yay!
imageI ‘adjusted’ the entrance block to have a small bee slot in case of robbing or wasp attack. I may notice they have a nice mini landing board, its because it just so happened that the off-cut I had edges like that; I had been cutting them off to give myself straight pieces of wood, but then I thought they would be useful to the bees and look nice too.
imageI was pretty pleased with myself that I got the bottom board to fit so well. It isn’t strong, but then its only to catch mites so I can count them. If it doesn’t last, well I have some more board and maybe I can have a little redesign and strengthen it with thin strips of wood.
What would I do different? Well hmm, not cut the nice edge off the wood in the first place, so I would not have to screw it back on. Might try to put the mesh a little lower and in a channel on the front piece so I could hide the wire edges and not have to fix it to the frame . Make the back door not the full width of the back, so I can be happier that the sides will be holding the weight on the stand. There are the odd couple of little mistake where I cut too much with the table saw; a band saw would be useful there. Doing a bit of measurement probably would not hurt, and using a set square would probably be a good idea.