This section is from the book "How To Keep Bees And Sell Honey", by Walter T. Kelley. Also available from Amazon: How To Keep Bees And Sell Honey.
Bee hives are made sectional, like a sectional book case, so that any number of kinds of supers can be added or removed as the season progresses. These parts should not be stapled or cleated together except for moving.
Cutaway View of a Bee Hive with Two Styles of Supers.
The bottom board is the floor board with the entrance to the front. The brood nest fits on the bottom board and may consist of one or two deep (9 9/16") hive bodies. Honey should never be removed from the lower body and in most locations (always when the hives are kept mainly for early pollination) no honey should be removed from the second hive body.
The supers fit on top of the brood nest and may consist of hive bodies, shallow supers or comb honey supers or any combination of these as the beekeeper may find expedient to use.
For the beginner I recommend the shallow supers because the finished combs can be removed and sold without the cost of an extractor, uncapping knife, honey tank, jars, etc. Then, too, comb honey sells easier and at higher prices than extracted honey.
The ten frame hive is the standard size hive used throughout the United States and probably over 95% in use are of this size. Although the ten frame hive is not the perfect hive it is the best suited to all conditions. While it does not give enough room for a good queen to lay all the eggs she can produce, the size of the brood nest can be increased by adding either a shallow super or preferably another hive body. A hive body of this size, when filled with honey, weighs over 80 pounds which is sufficient load for one man to handle. A ten frame hive is wide enough so that it is fairly stable and not liable to be blown over in storms even though stacked six stories or higher.
The eight frame hive is an old style now seldom stocked. Due to its narrow width it may be blown over in high winds and it takes more care and attention in Supering to prevent swarming.
Jumbo and square hives using 11 1/4 inch frames are now seldom found. These hives and bodies when full of honey are too heavy for the average man to lift by himself and the deep frames cause much more sagging of the combs and the production of more drone comb.
Many other styles and sizes of hives have come and gone and are not worth mentioning here, however, we wish to caution beginners against getting excited about some new design or tool or system until he has thoroughly investigated the subject. The old bee magazines, books and patent files are full of hundreds of such things that have not proved their worth.
Bee hives are manufactured on specially built, automatic machinery and due to the fact that all bee hives are shipped knocked down (KD) great care is taken to see that all parts fit exactly and as closely as a glove.
Soft white pine, (Ponderosa pine), is used almost exclusively and you will find that the fit is so perfect and the wood so soft that even a child 12 years old can correctly and rapidly assemble all of the parts by following the simple directions included with each carton. Special fine gauge, cement coated nails are supplied with each carton of wooden bee hive parts with the exception of section boxes which do not require nailing. The cement coating on the nails makes them very hard to pull out.
FRAMES: It is difficult to assemble the locked frames incorrectly but be sure to nail the top of the end bar into the top bar from the end as pictured.
If you have 200 or more frames to nail it will probably pay to buy a frame nailing device. These outfits hold 10 frames squarely and in position so that they may be nailed rapidly by turning it upside down and then up on end. When the job is completed fold back the end pieces of the nailing device which are held by springs, turn it upside down and the frames will fall out.
A frame-nailing device holds the frame parts squarely in an upright position so that they may be nailed rapidly.
Be sure that you have the side rails fitted on the floor boards with the thick and thin spaces the same way up. The 3/8 x 3/4 inch strip can be nailed either to the back or the front of the under side. A few beekeepers use the 3/8" entrance side of the bottom board but nearly all use the opening for greater ventilation and use the entrance cleat for reducing the entrance during the winter.
Special, non stretching, tinned, No. 28 wire is listed in the supply catalogues. This wire is tinned to prevent rusting. There are four holes in the end bars of the standard 9 1/8 inch depth brood frames and two in the shallow frames. This wire is stretched back and forth through these holes and secured at each end on small nails 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch long driven into the edges of the end bars. Some beekeepers insert eyelets in these holes to prevent the wire from cutting into the wood.
This wire must be drawn very tightly to give the necessary support to the comb foundation and while various wiring devices are for sale actually all you need are three 3/4 inch boards about 2 inches wide and 10 1/2 inches long if you have a solid bench to nail these to or if you want a permanent setup use two more boards, one 19 inches and the other 24 inches long, as pictured, to nail the shorter boards to permanently, using 7-d nails and clinching them. You will also need 4 twelve penny or larger nails.
Place the frame with the top bar about half an inch from the top side of the board and drive one spike in each upper corner inside of the frame as pictured. Then mark the inside center of the bottom bar and drive another spike 3/8 inch below this point. Drive these spikes well into the boards and cut or saw off the heads. Over this triangle you can place the frame by first placing the top bar over the two top nails and then pulling down on the center of the bottom bar so it slides over the lower nail. This will slightly pull in the end bars so that the wire may be stretched reasonably tight by pulling on the spool. Then secure the wire to the nails. When you remove the frame from the nails the wire will be stretched so tightly that it will sing like violin string.
You can build your own frame wiring outfit with pieces of scrap lumber and a few nails by following this picture and our instructions.
Hive Bodies And Supers:
The hive bodies and supers are assembled as pictured. The ends have one edge rabbeted out for the frame rests. It is possible to get a good fit on the lock corners with one or both hand-holds of the side pieces on the inside, so be sure that the hand-holds are all on the outside. Nail in the tin rabbet or frame support with the projection up. This is to form a bee space under the ends of the top bars of the frames to prevent them from being glued down by the bees.
There are several parts to the telescoping cover and inner cover, but you will have no problem with them.
 
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