Making Frames - Part 1

good afternoon and welcome to the bee yard the Paul rains have finally started after a long hot and dry summer here in Michigan and with the rains have come the fall flowers the bees are busily at work taking advantage of summers last hurrah they seem almost frantic in the coming and going they know there are only a few weeks left before settling into a long Michigan winter as things wind down in the bee yard we now have more time to spend in the workshop tending to all of those long overdue projects and that is a good thing since time spent in the workshop is quality time one project that the beekeeper should definitely put on their list is building their own beehive it is not complicated I can think of no better way to expand and extend your beekeeping journey than building your own equipment building your own beehive is easy on your budget and you'll end up with first-class stuff in this series of videos we will show you how to build a beehive from the hive stand at the bottom to the telescoping cover at the top and everything in between it is a great winter project so join us as we learn how to build a beehive in the beekeepers workshop today's project building the frames which are used to hold the wax Foundation and upon which the bees draw their comb you you you in today's project we will tackle the job of building trains the frame is a rectangular piece of beekeeping equipment that sits inside the hive bodies each high body contains multiple frames depending upon the width of the box you are using mounted inside the frame is the foundation either wax or plastic upon which the bees are out the comb if the bottom board hive bodies inner and top covers of the floor walls ceiling and roof of the hive then the frames are the furniture is on the John comb in the frame that the Queen Laser aids the nurse bees raise the young and the worker bees store the honey nectar the frames are movable and can be rearranged within the hive or taken out completely a moveable frame is the essence of the modern-day beehive and makes possible the management of bees as we know it all of this was a result of blanks thought in 1851 when he devised the line style style beehive the forerunner of the modern hive which featured among other things the moveable frame prior to Lange's thoughts in sight honeybee colonies were generally destroyed in order to harvest the honey needless to say this was not good for the bees with the moveable frame beekeepers can remove just the frames of honey and leave the rest of the colony intact to live another day in addition the moveable frames allow beekeepers to inspect the conditions inside a hive deal with disease and other management challenges and we use the valuable comb by putting extracted frames back into the hive quite an achievement for such a simple device as the frame the standard sized frame is always 19 inches long however frames come in three different types deep at 9 and 1/8 inches medium and six and a quarter inches and shallow at five and three-eighths inches the size of the frame is determined by the height of the hive body you are using traditionally deep shoe use so the frames would be nine and eight inches high there are a number of beekeepers who use the deep for the boot chamber and mediums for the honey super so these folks need two sizes of frames recently however a lot of beekeepers including me are now strictly using mediums because there is less weight to deal with from lifting and toting high body and only one size of frame is needed to run the entire operation today we will be building medium sized frames the downloadable plans for this project contained the dimensions for all of the different frame sizes but making frames you will not make just one hive bodies are designed to hold 5 e or 10 frames each and of course you will have several hive bodies on a single hive so making 20 30 or 40 or even more frames at a time is not uncommon we suggest that you first make a frame of two from beginning to end you will gain valuable experience doing so once you understand what is going on and how everything comes together you will then be able to set up your frame making operation and crank out a large number of frame components at a time will expand on this notion a bit later the frame probably takes the most abuse of any component in the Beehive during the life of a frame it will be pried twisted scraped spun drop and generally banged up needless to say the stronger the frame the better it will serve both you and the bees one way to achieve strong frame is to use only that portion of the lumber that is defect free and without any knots most of us will be working with number two grade pine lumber don't worry if your lumber has a few knots or other defects you can simply work around the defects when cutting the board too required lengths try to avoid lumber that is twisted warped cut or crooked we typically will be able to use up to 90% of a board perhaps even more so weight is not a really an issue another way to achieve strong frames is to make accurate cuts and tight fitting joints of all the components in a beehive the frame undoubtedly has the most demanding dimensions in the plans that power many dimensions are specified down to a sixteenth of an inch and in some cases even 1/32 of an inch throughout this video we will have shop tips to help you to get to this level of accuracy the tolerances I just mentioned are important so we recommend that you make test cuts and scrap material and fine-tune this all set up take your time be particular and check your work frequently we will be making frames out of both one buy lumber and to buy a lumber one buy lumber would be the common sizes such as a 1 by 4 a 1 by 6 or 1 by 8 to buy lumber would be the common sizes such as a 2 by 4 a 2 by 6 or 2 by 8 in this video we will be working with 1 by 6 and 2 by 6 boards the reason for this is that we can cut a board to length sometimes perform certain milling operations on the full width board then rip the boards into a number of the frame components we are working on this is a great time-saver and helps the eliminate waste the width of the boards you work with is not particularly important generally the wider lumber is more efficient and cost-effective if in doubt start with 1 by 6 and 2 by 6 and see how it worked for you when building frames you will be making a lot of fairly small parts and close cuts always think safety first we strongly recommend that you have a pair of push sticks on hand and always use them when working with the table-saw in the downloadable plans for this project we will provide a scale template from which you can make your own push sticks or you can purchase a set commercially we also make use of other shop aids such as a tenon jig and a tapered jig other videos on our channel show you how to make these check out the references at the end of this video in short be smart stay focused on your work and be safe now let's get started in today's project we will first make the side bars then move on to the top bar then the bottom bar and finally the tack strip at the end we will assemble all of these pieces together for the finished frame there are two side bars for each frame and as the name implies they hang down from the top bar and form the sides of the frame the side bar is 3/8 inch thick and ranges from 908 to 5 and 3 inches long the top section is 1 in 3 inches wide the nose down to a 1 and at 8 inch on the lower section Center down the middle are a series of small holes 3 or 4 depending upon over a height that are used to pin wax foundation these pin holes are not needed for plastic order adult foundation at the top of the side bar is a nice 7/8 inch wide and 7/16 inch deep that will slip into grooves on the top part the tabs on either side of this notch or a quarter inch wide on the bottom of the sidebar is another notch that is 3/4 inch wide 3/8 inch deep and accepts the bottom bar the tabs on the lower nodular 3/16 inch wide we are going to make this the side bar out of this a 2 by 6 so how are we going to do that well first we'll cut the 2 by 6 to the length of the side bar then we will cut two notches or dedos 1 the top and the other on the bottom of the 2x6 we will then with the 2 by 6 into a number of sidebar blanks that are 3/8 of an inch thick trim the length to width of the top section turn the lower section to width and finally drill the pinholes six steps and all nothing to it from a clear section of two by six cut a piece to the length of the sidebar since we are making medium sized frames this length is six and a quarter inches be sure to cut enough blanks for the total number of frames you are making now let's turn our attention to making the top data on the two by six a two by six is an inch and a half wide but the sidebar is an 8 inch narrower at one and three-eighths inches we have to allow for this X to eighth inch when cutting our dado and this is how we're going to do it here's a diagram showing the two by six and the profile of the sidebar we could position the sidebar in the middle of the two by but that would mean we would have to trim 1/16 of an inch off of both sides two cuts will be required what we are going to do instead is to position the profile against the right edge of the two by that way we only have to trim and eighth of an inch in a single step now let's take a closer look at the top to get the measurements we will need to cut the dado the two by is an inch and a half wide we need a 7/8 inch dado that starts a quarter inch from the right side of the two by and ends 3 a 7 inch from the other side so we will make our first data cut a quarter of an inch from the right side of the 2 by blank and we will make the second dado cut the eighth of an inch from the left side of the blank then all we have to do is your move is to remove the waste section in the middle and we'll end up with a 7/8 inch state-o where we need it to be the very first thing I do is mark a flat side of the 2x6 this will be the side with that extra eighth inch then set the data for a 7/16 inch I cut doc a quarter inch drill bit against a tight fitting board in the saws miter gauge slot then place your combo square snug against the drill bit and tighten the ruler against the saws outer curve when the drill bit is removed there's exactly a quarter inch between the end of the ruler and the blade next clamp the 2x2 the tenon jig with the marked side facing in and slide the fence over until the two by is tight against the end of the ruler the edge of the two by is now quarter inch from the outside of the blade and make that first fatal cut to make the second date oh do the same thing but this time use a 3/8 inch drill bit flip the board around so the mark side is now facing out and cut the second data then remove any waste in between I like to mark the data we just made as you will need to know which data is aside by top notch in later steps the bottom notch is made much the same way as a top dado we just completed again the two by is an inch and a half wide we are looking for a 3/4 inch dado that starts 5/16 of an inch from the right side and ends 7/16 of an inch from the left side so we will cut the first dado 5/16 of an inch from the right side of the 2 by 6 blank to then cut a second data that's that's seven sixteenths of an inch from the left side of the blank after that we will remove the waste from the center and we'll end up with the 3/4 inch dado we want to make the bottom dado lower the blade to 3/8 of an inch for the first data cut use a 5/16 inch drill bit as the spacer be sure the marked side of the 2 by is facing the fence positioned the fence and make your first cut the second dado is spaced using a 7/16 inch drill bit flip the 2 by around so that the marked side is facing out position the fence and make the second-date okay then remove the waste between the 2-day toes and now we have the two data's in the two by six exactly where we want them to be we are now ready to rip the two by six work piece into three inch wide planks for the sidebars this 3/8 inch thickness is rather important since the sidebars will slip into a 3-inch groove on the top part when the frame is assembled it is somewhat of a shop bummer to have a stack of sidebars that won't fit properly in the top bars we want to snug fit on the side bar in these groups or them it is important that we cut the sidebar to the width of the right thickness here's a shop tip that will help in a few minutes we will make these top bar grooves with the dado blade stack for a 3/8 inch wide cut we can make a gauge in a scrap piece of one by just make a shallow day tall using the dado blade set for 3/8 of an inch we now have a simple gauge that we can use to test the thickness of the side bar blanks with the standard blade in the table saw I have moved the fence 3/8 of an inch from the inside of the blade and raise the blade so that all the cuts through the two bite now it is just a matter of running the two by six work piece to the saw ripping off a 3/8 inch plank be sure to test the thickness of the first blank in the gauge if everything looks good then continue ripping the 2 by 6 into the side bar blanks as mentioned before since we are using to buy stock the blanks will initially be 1/8 inch too wide on one side in this step we will trim the sidebar blank to a width of 1 and 3/8 inches but before we do that now's a good time to organize all of the blanks if we trim on the round side the blank will be trashed this is for the reference mics we made earlier come in handy notice that the reference marks on the side and in the top match all lined up set the table saw fence one and three-eighths inches from the inside of the blade and cut each blank to this width make sure you are cutting the blank on the wide side which is a side with the reference mark and that extra eight-inch we have been talking about when completed both tabs of the upper notch will be a quarter inch wide and both tabs on the bottom will be 5/16 inch wide in this step we will trim the lower section of the side bar to a width of 1 and 1/8 inches by removing a 1/8 inch strip from either side pay particular attention to the angle transition between the lower and upper sections of the side bar for this job the bandsaw is the answer I have set the fence exactly 1/8 inch from the outside of the blade the lower section is three and five eighths of an inch including that angled transition allowing 1/8 inch for this transition I am installing a stop three and a half inches from the front of the bandsaw blade with the bandsaw properly set we can make the cut on one side of the workpiece and then flip it over and make the same cut on the other side those lower tabs are 3/16 of an inch wide not much room for error here and of course we repeat the same operation on all of the other side bar blanks we have finally to make the flared transition to the top section we again use the bandsaw and just eyeball the 45-degree cut the next step is to drill the pin or eyelet holes used when installing wax foundation if you are using plastic or durable foundation you may skip this step the holes are centered vertically on the side bar the number of pinholes is up to you I use 4 for deeps 3/4 mediums and 2 for shallow frames mark out the locations in the side bar and drill the holes after you drill the first side bar you can use it as a template to mark out the drill locations in all of the other side bars this will save a lot of time we are using a 764 inch diameter drill bit but your pins or eyelets may need a different diameter use whatever works for you finally it is time to clean up any rough edges a drum sander attached to a drill press make short work of this step but ham sanding works too when sanding inspect each side bar reject any that don't fit the spec if you are like me there will undoubtedly be a few well we have probably done enough and it is a good time to take a break and call it a day tomorrow we will finish this project by making the top and bottom bar and then assembling all of the parts so I hope you can join me again as we complete making the frame in the beekeepers workshop

Channel: beekeepersworkshop

Views: 338,217

Keywords: beekeepers workshop, bee hive frames, building beehive

Id: r8Zx4uRQx9k

Length: 20min 48sec (1248 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 29 2015