Beehive Plans

Our plans for keeping bees are progressing well.

Regular readers of this blog will know that we’ve been attending meetings of the Aberystwyth Beekeepers Association. Despite our concerns that the windy, slightly barren nature of the local surroundings may not be ideal for bees, we’ve been encouraged by members of the association and are going to give bee-keeping a go.

We were going to buy a beehive over the winter and start with a nucleus of bees early in spring 2011. After much deliberation and research we decided that a National Standard hive was the best option as far as the beehive was concerned. But, to make it look a little prettier we wanted one with a gabled roof and stand – it is going to be a fairly prominent garden feature afterall.

They aren’t cheap, but after my Dad attended a beekeeping meeting with us, he’s been fairly keen to put his carpentry skills into action and build a beehive for us. Normally a National Standard hive with:

• a mesh floor
• a stand with alighting board
• a brood box containing 11 deep section frames
• a queen excluder
• 2 supers, each containing 10 shallow section frames
• a crown board
• a gabled roof

costs anything from £250 – £450 depending on where you get it. These are usually made of cedar and can come ready assembled or flat packed.

My Dad has priced it all up and for around £130 can make 2 hives from plywood based on these plans for beehives (with a few modifications of his own here and there no doubt). These don’t include the frames though which are actually more expensive than I thought.

The frames come in packs of ten and to fill 2 hives we will need 22 deep section (DN1) frames and 40 shallow section (SN1) frames. Ready assembled with foundation these will cost around £170, or we could buy the frames and foundation separately and assemble them ourselves for around £100 (we’d have some spares leftover too).

So, for somewhere around £350 – £400 we should be able to get two complete, fully functional and hopefully nice looking hives up and running.

Of course, on top of this we’ll also have the expense of bee suits for all three of us, including veils and gloves (although I’m hoping to manage without gloves so may even start gloveless!), along with other tools such as a smoker and a couple of hive tools (we’re bound to lose one of them so may as well get two straight away!)

The plans are all in place now we just have to find the money and make them a reality.

Tags: Beekeeping