Building Bee Boxes

The guys have been on hold on there bee removal activities because we are out of bee boxes in which to house our new arrivals. We put in another order to the big bee supply place in Paris, Texas and picked it up a few weeks ago. Here is our poor pitiful truck under the load of 15 complete new hives



Wait, those don't look like bee hives... oh, some assembly required... and gluing, and nailing, and treating and staining. No instant gratification here.

We start by gluing the ends of the boxes



This is not strictly necessary, but makes for a stronger box with fewer gaps for pests to hide.




The glued boxes are then squared off and clamped. Then nails are driven at each end to secure the box.




The rest of the nails are then driven in.



Since we had 45 individual boxes to build with this load (15 brood boxes with 2 supers each), we set up an assembly line to make things go quicker.

Glue

Square

Nail

Repeat 45 times... unless you run out of nails part way through, then you stop, get more nails and finish. But you only have to do that part if you don't plan ahead...

So repeat the process until you are very sleepy


and have lots of bee boxes.



Are we done yet? Noooo

Next the boxes have to be treated with boiled linseed oil. This protects the wood and smells really good. I'm not sure if that part matters or not, but it makes it a fun job.



This is a stack of oiled boxes drying in the yard. Ideally, you would oil all of the boxes at once and be done with it, unless of course you run out of oil on box number 21... and have to stop for the night. But that only happens if you don't plan ahead.

Then the boxes must be primed and then painted. Then, then they are ready for bees.