07/01/2019
How to Make a Honey Bee Box
People who have gardens and appreciate the importance of bees in the natural environment may seek to keep bees of their own. Bee boxes, or hives, today are designed to encourage the health of the bee society as well as make it easy for the beekeeper to remove the honey from the hive with the least disruption possible. A honey bee box is made up of a hive stand, bottom board, hive bodies (brooder), smaller boxes called honey supers, and a cover. The lower hive body is separated from the supers above by an excluder. Learn how to make a honey bee box to begin the beekeeping process.
1-
Hive Stand. This is the stand that lifts the hive off the ground, and may have an angled landing board for the bees. While you don’t need a technical ‘hive stand’, you will need a stand of sorts to prop your super off the ground. A small table or bench built to fit your honey bee box will work, if you’re looking for a home-made substitution.
2
Bottom board. This is the first section/layer of your box. It is a flat piece of wood that serves as the base for your super. The bottom board can either be solid or screened, the only difference being that screened bottom boards are better at keeping out pests and have an added bit of ventilation. Your bees will come and go from an entrance in the bottom board.
3
Entrance reducer. This is a small piece of wood that blocks off part of the entrance in the bottom board. Entrance reducers help small colonies by preventing the entrance of large pests and robbers.
4
Slatted rack. This is, just as it sounds, a flat panel of wood that is crossed by other small strips of wood, forming a flat rack. This is layered between the bottom board and the brood chamber, to provide ventilation, make access of the brood chamber easier, and prevents the bees from forming ladder comb. A slatted rack is an optional addition to your box, but it is well worth adding if you’re able.
5
Deep super. The deep super is the large box that the bees build their hive into. A deep super is the largest section, and you will use 1-2 for a single honey bee box. Each deep super comes with either 8 or 10 frames.
6
Deep super frames. These are the frames that are individually inserted into the deep super. The frames hold foundation, which is the wax and wire base that the bees use to start their own wax building. You will need 8-10 deep super frames, depending on the size of your deep super.
7
Queen excluder. Because you don’t want the queen bee to lay eggs in the honey, you add a queen excluder to your box. This is a flat rack that has small holes for the worker bees to use, but which are too small for the queen to use.