Building an Observation Hive The Plans for an 8 frame hive

Building My Observation Hive

I published these plans a year ago, and my hive has been hugely rewarding and successful.  The plan post was old enugh that some browsers no longer show it.  For those of you who have asked, here is how I built it:

Building My Observation Hive

These hive plans are for an 8 frame observation beehive; 2-frames wide, with a pair of deep frames, and 3 pairs of mediums.  Both sides open and a drawer at the bottom can remove what falls through the screened bottom.  The feeder can be opened for cleaning when outdoors.  Bees enter & exit through a 1” ID pipe fitting on the opposite side from the feeder, with clear tubing leading outdoors.

The first difficulty I encountered was that lumber does not come in widths that work well with bee space.  I cut a strip off of a “1x6” (actually ¾”x 5.5”) to make a .75 x 4.75.  4.75” is the width (depth) of my finished hive.   Likewise, I cut a strip off of a “1x4 “ (.75X3.5) to make .75 X 3.  3” is the width the 2 frames require to sit on.  The Plexiglas touches the .75x3’s when the doors close..  The strips I cut off worked well for constructing the screened bottom for the hive.

Plexiglas was available in a 32”x44” sheet, which I had cut into two 32”x19”. 

#8 Hardware cloth was not available but gutter screen was 8 wires/inch, so I got that.  The wires are thin and can be pushed, so most places I doubled it.  Screen is used on the vent holes, the bottom and the feeder.

I tried to draw my plans (next page) and tried to figure my lengths.  But my woodworking skills result in lengths that vary easily by 1/8” or more when I am trying to make them identical.  The screen bottom I only counted on being ¾” thick, but once I put on the screen, I realized I needed wood strips to secure it.  This then moved the entrance & feeder holes further up the sides, and the result is that I did not have room for an inner top board, which would have allowed ventilation on top.  All measurements were double-checked, as I worked, for frames fitting.  That being said, the wood I cut was:

.75 x 4.75 -  2 @ 34.5”  (sides of hive) 1 ¼” Holes cut for entrance & feeder, and

                        ¾” holes for ventilation screen.  To do it over, add 1.5” for  space at top.

                      1 @ 21”  (top of hive)

.75 X 3 – 1 @  19.4”(drawer bottom)

                 2 @  9 1/8” for deep frames to rest on.  Holes cut for screen, align with sides.

                 6 @ 6 1/8” for medium frames to rest on.  Holes for screen, align w/sides.

.75x.75 and .75 x .5 – these were the strips cut off the long boards; cut each

2 @ 19.5”

2 @ 1.5”

.75x1.5 (“1x2”) 1 @ 19.5” for behind the drawer

                        1 @ 19.4” for the drawer front

            4 @ 32 11/16 for door uprights  --- I did not cut these in advance, but measured when

            4 @ 16 5/16” for door tops & bottoms.      the rest was assembled & ready for doors.

.75x7.5 (1x8) 1 @ 34”  for base

For the feeder:

.75x3.5 (1x4) – 2 @ 5 1/8”   one is the bottom, no hole; top gets 2 7/8 dia. hole

1.5x3.5 (2x4) – 1@ 5 1/8”  2 3/8” hole in middle, 1” wide opening to hive hole.

I needed also:  5 hinges, 3 knobs, 3 lock hasps, 1- 1” ID threaded adapter (pipe),

a 6’ length of clear 1” ID tubing,  1 clamp for the tubing, wood glue,  1 ¼” screws for securing corners, small flat headed screws for securing the Plexiglas to the inside of the door frames, staples to fasten the screen, and to fasten the door frames, which are glued and secured by the Plexiglas.  Drill, bits (holes & thru Plexiglas) and jig saw for feeder.

The diagram below is far from perfect.  Important factors are the width, the height of each frame support (9 1/8" for deep, 6 1/8" for medium) and the 1/2" space between them for the frames to slide in.  Also indicated are the entrance & feeder holes, the debris drawer, and vent holes.

I began by making my long cuts.   Then I prepared the bottom screen.

Next was the feeder, which was not attached to the rest of the hive until the doors were ready, but is shown here as it is when attached.  The large hole was cut with a hand held jig saw.  First a hole was drilled in the center, then rays cut out to the circle.  That way when cutting around the circle, pie wedges fell out and the blade didn't bind.  The base is glued and screwed to the body.

The feeder was attached by gluing the body & base to the hive, and inserting 3 drywall screws from the inside into the body & base.  The top is attached by the hinge & hasp only.

Next, the pieces were cut which support the frames, and a ¾” hole was cut in each for ventilation.  These were placed onto the side pieces, with the bottom screen and drawer pieces placed to verify the space each requires.  Wood & Plexiglas were held along each side to be sure the pieces were properly centered for the doors to fit later.  Holes were marked on the side pieces, and cut, both the large holes at the bottom and the ventilation holes. Screen was placed over the ¾” holes and the small pieces were aligned, glued & nailed into place, sandwiching the screen between. 

This shows my habit of keeping frames in the hive, to keep things correct size & square.

The drawer is a “1x2” fastened onto the edge of a .75x3.  Glued, and a small block at each edge allows a nail to help secure without it showing on the front.

Once all of the preliminary pieces were prepared, the hive assembled quickly.  Corners were glued and screwed.  Final measurements for the door panels were verified, and the doors were cut and assembled.    Below is the Plexiglas screwed to the inside of a door panel.

It is probably worth mentioning that I have only hand tools and designed these plans to avoid needing a router or table saw or any of that other fancy stuff.  If I can make this, you can too.

For many other ideas and plans, visit

 http://www.woodworkersworkshop.com/resources/index.php?search=observation+hive

My Observation Hive - The Swarm! Bee Hives Reproduce by Swarming

My bees have outgrown their space!
This observation hive is an 8 frame hive, and with the addition of the honey super, it has 10 frames.  That is a nice space for a small hive of bees, but as the population grows, they would like about twice that much space.  The honey super drew the attention of some of the bees, who have worked it and added nectar.  It is not yet all matured into honey.

Over a week ago, I noticed that in addition to the obvious crowding in the hive, there were queen cells being built and tended, in the swarm cell position on the bottom of the frames.  I am keeping an eye on them.
When I looked at the hive on Monday, a beautiful sunny afternoon, I saw that its population was a fraction of what it had been the day before.  we went out looking for the swarm, and found it in a tree in the yard.  A couple of 5 gallon buckets, ladders & such were employed, and most of the bees were successfully transferred to a new hive.  (Details such as carelessly tied nets & stings on scalps aside.)  A little sugar water spray, a little brushing, and they settled in pretty well.  The remaining bees on the outside of the new hive moved to the interior in the morning.

The bees who were clinging most tightly to the branches and didn't get into the buckets to be transported to the new hive had no better option than to return to the observation hive, which they did, as one impressively large and loud group.  I am glad for their return, because the hive has had no pests, but immediately the next day both moths and hive beetles were attempting to enter.  It is surprising how the angry fighting noises of the bees call my attention to these events.  And it is also surprising how quickly the pests were aware of the weakened state of the hive.  The bees have fought off the pests and are busily filling the nicely drawn wax with nectar and pollen.  Much brood remains to hatch out, and some is not even capped yet.

The new outdoor hive resulting from the swarm is nicely established, and when we checked it today we found drawn comb and lots of festooning.  We gave them a proper bottom board and covers, and they are for the moment a healthy independent hive.  They will likely need to be partnered with another hive to be large enough to go through winter, but it is nice that the bees are still here.

The Honey Super

The bees have done amazing things in the past week.   The hive is full.  It was high time to give them more space.  So the Honey Super has finally made an appearance.
I built the super to hold 2 medium frames.  It sits over a 1.5" hole I made in the center top of the observation hive.  That hole has been plugged until today.

The wood I cut to build the honey super, all cut from "1 inch thick" wood, which is 3/4":
2- 21" x 4.75" one for base, one for the inner cover.
                      The base has a 1.25" hole drilled in the very center, to align
                      with the 1.25" hole in the top of the observation hive.
2- 6.75"x4.75" sides
2- 6"x3" inner sides, for frames to rest on  
               Drill 2 holes in each pair of these (side and inner side),
               and place screen between for ventilation, as for the hive.
4- 19.5" x 1" for the top and bottom bars of the frame to hold the plexiglas in place.
4- 4.75" x 1" for the sides bars of the frame to hold the plexiglas in place
22.5" x 6.5" for top of telescoping outer cover
2- 22.5" x 1.5" side for telescoping outer cover
2- 4.75" x 1.5" ends for telescoping outer cover

Also needed are 2 pieces of plexiglas, 19.25" x 6.5"

Depending on your surroundings, you may want hardware clasps to secure the honey super to the hive.  I secured it by running tape around the junction.  I also did not install a lock on the telescoping cover.

The plexiglas is sandwiched between the 3" wide hive frame supports and the 1" bars that frame the plexiglas.  The wood is glued and nailed.  The plexiglas is not meant to open.  

This little super will be removed by (removing the tape I have around the junction and) sliding 2 flexible plastic cutting boards (or pieces cut from milk jugs) between the hive and the super, and lifting one of the pieces of plastic with the super, while leaving the other with a weight on it to plug the opening.  The super will be taken outside, the cover and inner cover removed, the filled frames removed and new frames installed.  The bees will be shushed by smoker in the direction of the hive opening on the outside of the house. As worker bees, they should have no problem finding their way home.  This part is all theory so far.  

The super is installed and the bees are beginning to investigate.

The Queen Mother

It is quite fun to have people interested in my bees, and honey bees in general.  My dark queen inspired questions about her color.  Her mother was a fair Italian queen.  Here are pictures I took yesterday in the hive that the observation hive came from.  This golden queen is bright and easy to spot as she moves along the frame.

Honey bees have been cultivated for thousands of years.  European bees were dark, then a strain developed in Italy that was golden.  People liked the bright golden queen because she was easy to spot.  They also tended to produce lots of honey.  So some people started using Italian queens, and when combined with European drones, the resultant bees were striped.  I'll bet you've see striped honey bees haven't you?  

  The drones are the males, and can be either yellow or dark.  They are distinctively larger, and their head looks very black because their larger eyes meet at the top of the head.  They also have a squared off butt.  Call them wide load, fat boy, or "pet me bees", they have no stinger, so you can pick them up & play with them.

 

Bees have been bred to select for mild temperament, productivity, hygienic behavior (if they find diseased larvae & dispose of them, the hive avoids the illness or pest), over-wintering, swarming behavior (or lack of it) and more.  There are several popular strains.  Italian bees were the predominant ones brought to this country with the europeans and spread across the country both with the settlers and on their own.  

I was told that whatever queen I get, my bees will most likely be Italian, because that's the largest population of drones, and the queen doesn't breed at home, but flies off to a drone congregation area somewhere high up in the air that really only the bees know about.  She generally only makes one flight, but gets genetic contributions from several drones.  My yellow Italian queen obviously got assorted contributions, in order to have produced a dark daughter, the one in my observation hive.  

Since many people in the area have bees, and buy special queens for one reason or several reasons, I can only speculate about my bee heritage.  Even bee breeders are faced with the difficulty, except those in very isolated places like islands (Buckfast Abbey, on a British island developed a special strain of Buckfast bees).  Very recently there have been some breeders who have more controlled breeding, but usually the approach is to make sure there are a LOT of the right kind of drones around when your queen makes her flight, so a breeder makes certain he has loads of the right drones (and all of his neighbors benefit, assuming they agree on what is "right".)

Royalty! The Dark Queen Reveals Herself

This hive has been so rewarding.  I love to listen to the peaceful hum, and on good days when the nectar is flowing, you can smell the honey being made.  I've watched rounds of new bees hatch and new brood develop, have monitored the comings & goings, watched the multi-colored pollen come in and be made into bee bread in the brood area, nectar be deposited, and then consumed,  and watched these energetic ladies draw new comb.

Here is a series of pictures of a couple of new bees thinking of emerging.

Up, down!  It's a struggle.

   

 

 

 

I see this happen all the time in the OH, but I still don't take such good pictures of it;
I took these pictures outdoors in another hive.

The brood fills in an oval, then empties from the center out, and repeats.  That tells me they were successful in raising a queen from the young brood I placed in the hive, but weeks go by and I don't see her highness.

I have read that the bees can make wax more efficiently if they are in a dark environment, so I keep a cover over the hive when I am not watching the activities.  Here they have begun drawing comb in the 3rd frame up.

Capped & open brood, nectar and pollen.

Colorful pollen above and below brood.  The bottom frame  is from last year's brood nest.
The wax becomes darker as it is re-used.

Now they have drawn comb on all of the frames in the hive.  

The busy tube to the outdoors.  They navigate about 5' of tube.
I drilled small holes in it every inch or so because they had problems with condensation.
The holes allow the moisture to escape.

The bottom 2 sets of frames (there are 8 frames, 2 at each level) are full of brood.
The top 2 sets are newly drawn and currently are being filled with nectar.

the other side

nectar

Bright orange pollen being stored among the brood.
They ran short on open cells for a bit and have had a very busy wax-making week.

If you are using my plans to build a hive, I left more than bee space at the bottom.   I wondered if that was a mistake. You might want to leave less.  Here you can see the bees have drawn some comb suspended from the bottom bar of the lowest frame.  This is drone comb, as would be expected.  It will be interesting to see if it is used for storage, or always for drones.  It is new yesterday.  I expect it will first be used for drones, as there are very few drone cells elsewhere.

 AND... drumroll, please!  Presenting our Dark Queen!

In the center of this picture you can see the queen with her court.
She was busily evaluating and depositing eggs into the cells the bees had cleaned and prepared.
Under the bottom rung of the frame you can see the thick crowd of festooning bees stimulating their wax glands. 

The dark queen and her court.

I consider this hive a great success so far.  If I did nothing more with them but watch, and possibly add a feeder if & when food sources dry up, they would become crowded and need to swarm.  I can carry the hive outdoors to tend it, but I have not needed to.
I cut a hole in the center top of this hive before putting the bees in, and I hope to make a 'honey super' before they fill the 4 frames they have newly drawn.  The hole on the top is plugged.  I will cut a matching hole in the small super, align the holes, remove the plug and allow the bees to enter the super to deposit honey. The super would be just 2 frames side-by-side, so would be light & easy to remove & take outdoors to harvest the honey and give them new empty frames to work on.