02-07-2013, 07:34 PM
For those that aren't beekeepers, a "National" is a specific design of hive - probably the most common in the UK - and a "Super" is a smaller height box that the bees store honey in - the one the queen is constrained to is called the "Brood" box and shares the same cross section as the super but is deeper. In the case of a National hive, the supers are 460x460x150mm and the brood box is 460x460x225 - internally the boxes contain various gaps & spaces whose sizes are critical - if a gap is too big, the bees will fill it with "bee glue" (propolis), if its too small, they won't get through it - a mm one way or another is enough to irritate them 
It was a wet day today, so I decided to make some supers from scratch - the cost up to 25 quid each if you buy them - I reckon these cost me 7 quid plus about 40 minutes each to make...
Looking at my stash of "someday it'll come in use" wood, I found some decent pine - 2000x170x20mm and 2000x44x28.
I reduced these to 2000x150x18mm and 2000x44x25mm - the base sizes needed for a National super - pretty much all my big tools were used:
Bees are very very fussy about sizes and gaps - everything is cut to better than 1mm - I tried for 0.5mm accuracy, e.g. the bottom "bee space" under the sides must be(e) exactly 6mm - not 5mm or 7mm - exactly 6mm...
Photo below is of a pine version against a 15 year old cedar one that is still serviceable but has seen better days... The PDF of the drawing is also there (I make no claims about my drawings - its many many years since I was taught to do this stuff... ) - The drawing is fully parametrised, i.e. each dimension is driven by constants, variables or formulae - change one value in a table. e.g. the box height, and the drawing will reconfigure from a "super" to a "brood" box automatically...
It was a wet day today, so I decided to make some supers from scratch - the cost up to 25 quid each if you buy them - I reckon these cost me 7 quid plus about 40 minutes each to make...
Looking at my stash of "someday it'll come in use" wood, I found some decent pine - 2000x170x20mm and 2000x44x28.
I reduced these to 2000x150x18mm and 2000x44x25mm - the base sizes needed for a National super - pretty much all my big tools were used:
- Planer Thicknesser (reduce and finsh sizes)
- Table saw (length, width & 22degree bevel)
- Router (small rebates)
- Router table (big rebates, joints)
- ...etc.
Bees are very very fussy about sizes and gaps - everything is cut to better than 1mm - I tried for 0.5mm accuracy, e.g. the bottom "bee space" under the sides must be(e) exactly 6mm - not 5mm or 7mm - exactly 6mm...
Photo below is of a pine version against a 15 year old cedar one that is still serviceable but has seen better days... The PDF of the drawing is also there (I make no claims about my drawings - its many many years since I was taught to do this stuff...
) - The drawing is fully parametrised, i.e. each dimension is driven by constants, variables or formulae - change one value in a table. e.g. the box height, and the drawing will reconfigure from a "super" to a "brood" box automatically...
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Are there many half-timbered HROs 
