How to make a Langstroth Beehive // Woodworking | I Like To Make Stuff

hey i'm bobbitt i like to make stuff today we're going to make a beehive [Music] this video is sponsored by google images today we're in my backyard specifically my back porch where a couple of months ago we found that some honeybees had moved in and created a hive inside the wall rather than killing off these bees i wanted to try to relocate them so i called the local beekeeper and asked him how we should move them in the conversation i got really fascinated with beekeeping and decided to make some hives so first let's go make the hives and then we'll move these guys i did a bunch of research on different types of beehives and it turns out there's a whole bunch of different types but one of the most common ones is the langstroth hive so that's what i decided to go with i looked online and found some really simple plans these are a standard plan and there's a bunch of different versions of them out there that are all basically the same but the cool thing about the langstroth hive is that you make individual boxes that you can stack on top of each other and if you want to expand your hive over time you can just make more boxes and put them on the reason i went with the langstroth hive is because it was designed around how bees actually work and live it's got some taller boxes at the bottom where they're bred and then the more medium sized boxes in the middle are where all the honey is produced so we're basically going to be making several boxes that stack on top of each other and then frames to go down inside them that's what we're going to do for the construction i'll link these down below if you want to check them out but also you can make the outside of the hive look however you want and for that we're going to our sponsor google images google images is an awesome way to get inspiration for your diy projects it's super easy you just go in a browser to google type in whatever you want and then hit the images button you're going to get a bunch of image results and you can narrow that down even further by using the categories across the top and then when you find an image that you like click the visit button on it to go straight through to the main content i was looking for how to make this look better than just painting in white and i found a really cool image that's not the right style but i really like the fact that you can see the wood grain so i decided to use that with some rot resistant wood i think in that image they were actually using poplar for the beehives a lot of people use pine but they usually paint it some people use cedar and that's what i'm going to use it's going to look really nice whether you have finish on it or not and it's rot resistant and should be fine for the bees these are basically finger jointed boxes let me cut these down to length and then we'll do the finger joints [Music] [Music] i made a whole bunch of these finger joints or box joints and i did this with a dado stack and a jig but you don't need those to do this in fact there's a bunch of different ways you can use a regular saw blade you can use a router my buddy david pachito just did a whole video about how to do finger joints with just a router but i've got these pieces done now they're ready to put together into a box so i'm just going to get some wood glue and square these up [Music] we've got these medium boxes all glued up so we're going to wait for those to dry and work on the deep boxes now i couldn't find a cedar 1 by 12 so we've got a 1 by 8 and a 1 by 4. we're going to join those together with a biscuit joiner and the way that works is this tool cuts a small slot in each one of the pieces and then you slide in this piece which is called a biscuit and then glue it all together clamp it up and it makes it into a single board you want to cut mating slots in both of these pieces so if you line them up and then draw a line across you can use that point as the center of your biscuit [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] while i was waiting on the medium boxes to dry i cut down the pieces for the deep boxes and added the fingers these are quite a bit deeper but one thing i forgot on these was to add a rabbet along two edges so we can hang some frames on the inside we'll get to why that's important later on but i'm gonna go ahead and add that rabbet to these pieces before i assemble the boxes and on these i'll just have to go back with a router and add it [Music] making those rabbets was a huge mess but they're done so all the boxes have the rabbit on each side now the thing that goes in that rabbit is a frame and the frame is where the bees build their cone the frame is going to be made out of a piece of cedar with a little notch on each end is going to drop down and sit in those rabbets but to make the sides of the frame we've actually got some laser cut pieces that are going to fit right here we'll have one on each end and then a piece that goes across the bottom to connect them we have to make eight of these frames for every box so we have a lot to do now we've got all our pieces cut for the frames we've got 32 of these we've got 32 of these and we have a lot more of these each one of these brackets that we laser cut is actually two sandwiched together and then we have to have two of those for each one of the frames josh made up this simple little jig so we can lay these out and glue them together then we're going to drive in a couple brad nails just to hold them in place while the glue dries here's one of the finished frames now we just have to do a whole lot more it's the next day all of our frames are glued up they're in good shape and i want to show you how they go into these boxes you just drop them in and they land on that little rabbet that we cut and then you can stack them up these little pieces that come up on the sides are what act as spacers to make sure that they don't get too close because any gap that's less than about 3 8 of an inch the bees will fill up with a wax-like material so we're going to make sure to keep these apart so that you can easily take them in and out now this is supposed to hold 10 we miscalculated a little bit so we can really only fit nine but i think that'll actually be okay it'll give them a little bit more space in between them we've got all the boxes done down here so it's time to move to the covers there's an inner cover and an outer cover this one has a hole in the middle of it to allow the bees to come in and out and then this top cover will be what protects the entire hive from rain and weather and these are basically just frames with panels on the inside of them for the inner cover we're going to use this thin plywood i've already got the frame pieces cut up for the outer frame so we're just going to cut a dado in these with a regular saw blade and then we can fit this piece right inside there i started making that cut and actually realized that the riving knife was higher than the blade and was stopping the wood from going through now this is here to protect you and you definitely want to use it if you have one but unfortunately i'm gonna have to take it off to make these dado cuts and then i'll put it back on [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] the inner cover is done so now we're going to make the outer cover and this is really just a box with a flat top that goes over the top of the entire hive then we're going to wrap this with some aluminum flashing to make sure that no water or other stuff gets down on the inside of the hive since rain water will collect on the top of this that flashing will help stop any wood rot i suppose you could make any kind of roof you wanted to you could make a slanted roof you could add shingles but i really like the flashing in the wood grain that i saw in that photo on google images [Music] if you remember a while back we made a tree house and on that treehouse there's a slide to make that slide we rolled out a long piece of aluminum flashing and it had to be really wide luckily that same flashing will work to cover the top of this there's nothing special about it except for the fact that it's wider than what you would typically find [Music] we finished both of the tops and the last thing to make is the bottom now on these plans it's got basically just a piece of plywood with a three-sided frame and that fourth side is open so the bees can come in and out but i saw some other examples of ways to do it that i like a little bit better one of them is a frame with a mesh on top of it and then a solid piece of plastic underneath that that's removable this lets all of the nasty stuff in the hive drain through that mesh down onto the plastic then you can pull the plastic out and clean it off if you need to so that's what we're gonna do [Music] [Applause] [Music] here's what i've got so far for the base this is the landing area where the bees will land here to go into the hive and then this surface around here is where we're gonna put that mesh i mentioned earlier we're gonna slide in the white piece of plastic through this slot in the back and it's gonna follow this dado down here and then to cover up the top of that mesh i've got some 3 8 of an inch strips that are going to go right here that's going to create a 3 8 of an inch opening on the front for the bees to come in and out of this is just aluminum screen that you would maybe use on a screen door or a window screen it has one edge that's folded and not rough i'm going to use that on the front then just put this down with a staple gun and trim off the outside [Music] we've got the bee boxes built and so now it's time to move the bees this wall right down here is what we're going to have to remove to get the bees out and i can actually smell the honey from here which is kind of crazy the bee keeper that i talked about earlier is coming this afternoon we're going to take this panel off and move them now this video is not about beekeeping it's about building the hive so unfortunately i'm not going to give you a whole lot of information about moving them i just wanted to show you the process [Music] [Music] huge thanks to google images for sponsoring this video be sure to go check them out to get some ideas for your next diy project i'm super happy that i chose to go with the cedar on these boxes i think they look great this has been a really fascinating project for me i've learned a ton about bees a ton about bee hives and i've still got a whole bunch to learn about actually keeping the bees if you're interested in beekeeping one of the best things you can do is find a local beekeeper near you and get to know them a lot of the specifics of beekeeping are actually about your local area so if you find a local beekeeper you'll have all the information you need huge thanks to our local beekeeper richie for helping us move this hive hopefully we'll have some more content around this in the future we'll see we've got tons of other types of projects that you may want to check out so be sure to subscribe if you're not already that's it for this one thanks for watching we'll see you next time [Music] let me go today we're going to make a beehive the wrong way because if i don't forby is gonna like just throw a b on screen or something anyway 4b

Channel: I Like To Make Stuff

Views: 372,976

Rating: 4.9364104 out of 5

Keywords: bee, beehive, langstroth hive, bees, langstroth beehive, langstroth long hive, langstroth, beekeeping, beekeeper, bee beard, bee family, how to, make, woodworking, cedar beehive, diy beehive, diy, bee hive, bee hive removal, beehive removal, beehive removal from house, bee suit, honey, honey bee, bee swarm, wood, outdoor projects, outdoor projects diy, tutorial, bee keeping, honey bees, googleimages, google, images, instagram, facebook, amazon, in, i like to make stuff, electronics

Id: rt2AC9U-fhY

Length: 15min 46sec (946 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 03 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/RockyMountainBeek]

I like the way his hive looks but I do see some mis-steps, mainly because he is new to beehives, not to the quality of the build, which it fine. TBF, when I was taught how to make a hive box I had my grandfather's experience being passed on to me. So this post is just to share some of that experience, not critique the video.

The plans he used are plans from beesource.com. That web site is a fantastic resource and those plans are possibly the most downloaded plans, but there is one minor flaw. The finger joints should be reversed from how shown in the detail bubble labeled "Best detail of frame rest." The detail labeled "Option" has the right finger joint orientation, but do not cut the top finger notch in the end piece and leave the rabbet the full 16-1/4" length. Here is a picture of what you want to end up with: https://i.imgur.com/b8F8Pm0.png. Whether you cut 3/4" or 1" finger joints, you should end up with a 5/8" wide 3/4" deep finger at the top edge of the side pieces. Now trim the top 5/8" wide fingers to 3/8" long. On the end piece, do not cut the last finger notch. If you use 3/4" box joints the end piece top edge finger is 1-1/8" wide. If you use 1" finger joints it is 1-5/8" wide. Cut the rabbet so it is the full 16-1/4" length of the board, leaving the flange running the full width. Now that clipped finger on the side board will set in the frame rabbet, closing it off, and reinforcing the rabbet. The rabbet as shown in the plans runs from inside edge to inside edge. The unsupported 3/8" wide flange in the plans can easily break off while prying propolized frames loose, ruining a bee box. By reversing the finger joints the rabbet runs from outside edge to outside edge, fully bracing the ends, and is a lot stronger. This is how commercial boxes you buy from most suppliers are made.

For a screened bottom board you should use #8 hardware cloth, not window screen. The window screen is too fine to allow pests and hive debris to fall through, and first time you attempt to scrape it clean with your hive tool you'll rip it.

[u/ATXENG]

I need to start a youtube channel

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[u/ochaos]

That's a pretty docile hive.

[u/MACK_DADDY_CASH]

Some serious finger joints