Assembling a hive

My carpentry skills are mediocre at best. There have been times in my life when I pretended to myself and others that they were better than that, but those times are faded memories. Whatever my skills, however, I had to gather them up on Sunday and start the assembling the hives I had purchased on Saturday from Howard (see previous post).

Fortunately, things didn't turn out badly.

At least, it wasn't a disaster.

What staved off utter ruin was the good instructions that Howard had given me on Saturday about assembling frames. If he hadn't done that, I would have messed up far more than the two I did. (These two frames are not completely unusable; they're just not showpieces.)

The other thing that helped is that the millwork on the parts is precision stuff. They fit together tighter than O.J.'s glove, and the glue and nails are almost an afterthought. Once you have done a hive box (top picture) and a few frames (middle), you get into a routine where it takes about 10 minutes per frame. That's not too bad, but then you consider I have to do 30 frames. And that's just for one hive. There are 10 frames per box; the lower picture shows how they fit into the box.

All this has to be done by the first of April, because they bees will arrive shortly thereafter. They will will expect accommodations.

Tonight begins the Blount County Beekeepers' two-night workshop at the library. Looking forward to that.