Building Beehives For Dummies

This is a great book for the beginner! Explains it very well.

Looked online for instructions on building hives and it seemed every site had a different method of construction although all ended up with the same basic dimensions which are necessary if you are purchasing frames or other pieces of a hive. Since my woodworking shop is fairly well equipped, I wanted to use box joint construction which is one of the strongest possible joints and therefore the hive should last and take some abuse. Building Beehives for Dummies was one of the few books or instruction sets that I found that used the box joint construction method. Also, method shown for building frames was straight forward and again was within my abilities. This book was purchased as an ebook which made reading some of the diagrams difficult and skipping between pages was tough. Would probably purchase the printed edition if I were to buy this book again.

The author re-hashed much of the material from ‘Beekeeping for Dummies’ which was kind of a waste of time for me, having just read said book. However, if someone were to read only this book and not the other, the material would be fresh. I found a couple of mistakes in the measurements so one needs to check everything before cutting the parts. Otherwise I found the book quite helpful as I had no idea where to begin building bee hives.

There are several styles of hives to build. The plans, materials lists and cutting lists are straight forward. The accessories section is a definite plus. I am particularly interested in the Langstroth hive and the accessories. Since my area has plenty of winter and spring rain an angled entrance would help keep moisture out of the hive. Maybe the author can add that to the accessories section as a screened bottom board with an angled entrance.

I've made several hive bodies and inner/outer covers so far from this book. To help someone else from wasting some flashing, make sure the 8 frame outer cover flashing is cut to 17-3/4″ x 24" (not 17-3/4″ x 22″) as written in the book. The cover frame is 22" and cutting the flashing to 22" won't leave enough for the 1" lip to fold down.Other than that, no issues and really solid hives as a result!

This was a good book for providing easy to understand information that beginning beekeepers need to know.

I have been keeping bees for years in Langstroth, Warre and Top Bar hives. I build nearly all of my own hives and woodware for them. Still I found this book both helpful and entertaining. It is easy to read and instructions easy to follow. I’m an old grumpy bee keeper and I loved it! Even if all you can do is dream about keeping bees or you need a gift for a bee keeper that has “everything”, this is a great book.

Good book but has shortfalls. For the Kindle version reading, the dimensions are almost impossible. Especially the fractions. The illustrations do not scale at all. So increasing the font size does not help.I've completed three of the double-screened inner covers.Now that I'm finished I don't think they will work unless I add a modification to the Outer Hive Cover. As described in the drawings the double screened cover will rest flush under the Outer Hive Cover. If so, then this negates the use of the screen 100%.Also, the design calls for a 1/8" x 1" rabbit along the entire inner surface to allow the #8 cloth to rest flush with the surface. It then describes cutting a 3/8" opening on one side for an upper bee entrance. This doesn't work because it will have the cloth covering the entrance. To make this work the rabbit on one side needs to be 1/2" to allow for the 3/8" opening. I did not catch this until I had cut wood for three inner covers.Finally, he describes almost all of these projects as very simple to build. He is correct if you have a very good woodworking background and a workshop full of tools. For instance, for the inner cover, I used a table saw, drill press, bandsaw, a square clamp, router table, and two 3 foot clamps to ensure all legs were square and aligned.

I start building my own easely!! Thanks for this book!

The book is a good introduction to a complex subject.A good starting point.

I give this book a low score because it is not in Metric.Everyone else uses Metric why can't you publish plans in Metric?I gave this book an extra star because it has useful information but It would be a wholelot better If they got with the times and used metric

magnifique prix incroyable et prix uk 52£ très bonne affaire.Contenu assez unique pour débuter la fabrication des ruches en tant qu'amateur

As an aspiring beekeeper who is reasonably good at carpentry it was a natural choice to build my own hives but good published plans and instructions are hard to find. I was pleased to find this Dummies series which sets out in simple terms every step in the process. Once you get beyond the US terminology e.g. lumber = wood and the exclusive use of Imperial measurements down to 1/32" then it is a useful and informative guide which I have found to be invaluable and I'd recommend it to anyone.