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How to Assemble a Bee Hive

While you can purchase fully assembled bee hives, if you're just starting out, assembling a bee hive kit can help you become more familiar with how a hive goes together. The traditional Langstroth-type hive uses a bottom board entrance, boxes that sit on top of it, called supers, and two covers. Supers come in different sizes. Deep supers are typically used for brood chambers where the queen raises her colony. Medium and shallow supers are used primarily for honey production. The supers contain wooden frames, where the bees produce wax comb to raise their young and store honey and pollen.

Things You'll Need

Cinder blocks
Carpenter's level
Bee hive kit
Clean rag
Wax foundation
Queen excluder
Drill with small drill bits
2-inch finishing nails
1-inch finishing nails
Hammer

Instructions

- 1
  Apply some wood glue on the edges of the mitered ends of the boards for one of the supers. Insert the tabs for the four boards that form a super. Wipe any excess glue away with a clean rag. Drill a pilot hole through each tab at the end of each board. Place a 2-inch nail in each hole and hammer it in place to secure the super. Repeat this step with the other super boxes. Allow the glue to dry completely.
- 2
  Insert both the top bar and the bottom bar of a frame into the slots in the top and bottom of two side pieces for the frame. Drill small holes through the top bar and bottom bar into the side pieces. Insert a 1-inch finishing nail into each of the holes, and carefully hammer them in place. Repeat this step for the rest of the frames in the hive. Insert a sheet of wax foundation, which the bees will use to build their honeycomb form, into each frame.
- 3
  Position the cinder blocks on a level area. Adjust the blocks so that they are level and facing in the proper direction. Place the bottom board of the bee hive on the cinder blocks so that the blocks evenly and squarely support all four corners of the bottom board. Measure the level of the hive with the carpenter's level.
- 4
  Place a deep super box onto the bottom board with the frame ledges facing upward. Align the corners of the deep super with the bottom board. Insert 10 individual hive frames into the deep super and space them evenly. Repeat this step with another deep box. These supers form the brood chamber.
- 5
  Place a queen excluder onto the top of the second deep super. Align the corner of the queen excluder to the corners of the deep super.
- 6
  Add a medium super, the box that the bees will store honey in, onto the queen excluder with the frame ledges facing upward. Align the corners. Insert the 10 frames for the medium super and align them evenly.
- 7
  Place the inner cover of the bee hive on top of the medium super and align the corners. Place the telescoping outer cover on top of the inner cover. Your bee hive is now complete.

Insects & Science