A Beekeeper can literally start with a hand saw and hammer and turn it into the American Dream.
Tag: Woodwork
Death By A Thousand Cuts – Frame Production Lags
…total of 15 cuts per side – that’s 4,500 cuts and took about 7 hours.
Wooden Frames: Saving Money Without Wasting Time
Buying deep plastic frames cost about $3.00 or so, while building wooden frames myself cost about $0.55
Angry Bees In My Bonnet & Hive Beetle Management
It’s hard to tell if the red whelp on my cheek came from the bee stinging me on the nose or from me punching that bee with my fist like it was a grown man.
Hive Bottom Blueprint: Save Money Ripping 2×4’s Down To Size
2×4’s cost less than $3.00, while 1×4’s cost closer to $4.50 – 50% of the wood at 150% the cost. So here is how I used 2×4’s on my hive lids and bottoms:
How To Build An Awesome Cross Cut Jig
With a proper jig, a skill-saw can be the safest and easiest way to cut plywood down to size.
How To Save Time By Building Beehive Jigs: Supers
It saves me time but, more important, it saves me the frustration of trying to hold everything in place while I nail the super.
Making Beautiful Hive Stamps: What You Need To Know
I am so pleased with my new hive stamp. It is 10” long and about 2” tall and, as you can see, works like a charm. I made it out of 1.5mm craft foam that you can get at WalMart or Amazon. In fact I had purchased some of this foam last Wednesday and had…
When Building Beehives – If You Save Time, You Save Money
Beehives beg to be built from scarp lumber. With the outside dimensions of 16-1/4 x 19-7/8, even seemingly useless construction scarps can be used. I have built hives from old pallets. When people hear that, they immediately start posting comments about chemicals in pallet wood. Well I have built about 12 hives from pallets and…
How To Blueprint: 1×4 Deep Beehive Super
If anyone is interested, here is the Blueprint for my 1×4 deep beehive super. “A Goal without a plan is just a wish.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery (That’s is my new favorite quote!) As I mentioned in an earlier blog this super is built with 1×4’s and cost about $9.50 to build. Using nine 1×4’s…
How To Make Cheaper, Stronger, Easier Beehive
This deep super cost me $5.40 to $9.40 to build (depending on the grade of lumber)! Here’s how I did it: If you’ve read my blog at all, you probably know just how cheap I really am. When I started to rebuild my apiary, I started off repairing old rotted boxes. When I ran out…
How To Build Useful Hive Top Feeders
If you are one of the 1000’s here from Pinterest, checkout a few of my other Beehive Builds. Just click here. I’ve used a lot of feeders but my favorite one is Don “The Fat Bee Man” Kuchenmeister’s Hive Top Feeder. They are really easy to build and make checking on your bees super convenient. However, I…
Bees, Beetles, and Mosquitoes… Oh My!
Maybe I’m cheap or maybe I’m frugal but either way, I have a hard time throwing out dilapidated supers. This is my last attempt to breathe life into my original boxes. The super in the picture is about 13 years old and has been badlytreated. My latest act of malevolence was when I dropped the…
We Harvest Honey When It’s Warm For A Reason
“I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather.” – Sherlock HolmesThe picture shows the stand I built for my honey extractor, so that I could fit the 5 gallon bucket under the bung hole. I used a 4×4 that was actually only 3.5″ tall. On top of that I used…
And the splits just keep on coming
“By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination,” Christopher Columbus … Big talk for a man who thought he was in India. If the following blog goes off the rails, forgive me. I woke up at 3:00am with my “Night Dreads.” If you’re not familiar with my…
2018 The Future Looks Bright
“Never pet a burning dog,” – movie quote from, A Good Year. I do my best to keep this blog purely focused on my beekeeping but something strange happened last week that I don’t want to forget – so indulge me and then I’ll tell about my extraordinary beekeeping year thus far. Or just skip…
How To Build A Excellent Beehive Using Pallets
“Art is making something out of nothing and selling it,” Frank Zappa I have been making beehives out of old pallets. I’ve built about 14 now. I had planned on building 100 but the process is just too time consuming. However, if you are broke and want to get into beekeeping, then this is a…
Linda Passed Away
“A year from now you may wish you had started today,” Karen Lamb I have been overwhelmed as of late. I can’t put my finger on the exact cause of this feeling but it is there just the same and it has been crushing my productivity. Nonetheless, Monday (12/4/17) I finally managed to winterize my…
Predator-Proofing my Chicken Tractor
“Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral,” Frank Lloyd Wright My first three months of chicken husbandry was a lot more work than it needed to be. Taking the chickens outside every day and carrying them back inside every night was a hassle and quite time…
The Return of the Queen – Long Live The Queen!
These days I am much more reluctant to use the word “Miracle” when curiously great things happen. It seems lately every time I do, the next day it turns to crap. That being said, I was amazed to find the queen that had flown away last week had returned. It turns out that it really isn’t…
Honey Homestead 