Winter time is the time you need to determine what your plan will be for the Spring season in beekeeping. Once this is determined, you need to determine what you will need in regards to hive wood ware to meet those needs. What ever you decide, do not wait til weeks before you need them because supply will not be available or the cost will be much higher. That is why winter time is the time to plan!
In this case, Julie and I, determined that we needed to increase our honey production for this coming Spring. The average amount of honey production per 8 frame super is approx. 2 to 3 gallons. With this in mind, I determined that we would need 103 medium supers to produce 257 gallons.
One can choose to purchase the supers from a variety of beekeeping suppliers. It is nice to order supplies from these retail suppliers but they are pricey if you are ordering for several hives. I have chosen to manufacture my own. I looked at it from a cost perspective and it only cost me about $5.00 per super and that includes, wood, paint, staples, glue, and saw blades.
Here are the details for someone that wants to begin making their own hive bodies.
1. Go to the nearest saw mill and request pricing for white pine in 8” or 12” width board. This needs to be ¾” board. My last purchase was 60 cents a board foot. You can figure about 6 ft. per super. In our case, this equaled a quarter of a semi-truck load of lumber. If you go to a hardware/lumber store your lumber cost could more then double.
2. If you need a table saw or other equipment, go take a look at Craigslist.org and there are plenty of great deals on “next to new” table saws.
3. You will also need a drill press that has 6,000 rpm to cut the handle holds. You will also need to purchase a “rubber hog” to cut out the hand holds. You will need a staple gun that shoots a 1/2 staple, air compressor, dado blade, and saw blade. I believe I have less then $700 in purchasing all of the equipment through Craigslist and other avenues.
We have taken the approach of using 8 frame equipment. The picture above is 103 medium supers that I did in December and just finished the last couple of supers today.
In all, I would say it took probably 60 hours to manufacture these medium supers over a period of 45 days. If I had full days to work on them, I probably could have saved 10+ hours of manufacturing them.
I encourage painting the exterior with two coats of 10 year latex paint. More to come later on the painting!
If you have additional questions on this blog, please feel free to write me.
Ray
