I found this Instructable last winter and knew I had to make it myself. It seemed easy and fairly inexpensive. It took some time for me to get around to it but here it is, my beehive.
I started by cutting a plastic water barrel in half. I then washed it as well as possible.
Then I measured and made a frame for it from 2×4’s.
I put the barrel in the frame and nailed it into place, which resulted in some major thumb whacking and a band-aid applied by Son.
Don’t worry, Daughter has a toy hammer she’s “helping” with.
Then I screwed on the legs.
It turned out surprisingly tall which then required some bracing lower on the legs.
We caulked the gaps between the barrel and the frame with regular latex caulk.
Next I built the roofs out of 2×4’s and metal sheeting that we already had on hand.
I cut a small circle of hardware cloth and glued it over the entrance to the hive. I didn’t want anything bigger than a bug taking up residence in these things.
Then we cut the bars and ran a line of wax down the middle of each to guide the bees.
Lastly we coated the entire inside of the hives with beeswax and lemongrass oil. We hope the oil helps attract a swarm.
The original plan was to keep the hives inside our large lean-to. However, I now believe I am going to build an addition to the lean-to specifically for the hives. That will follow in a later post.
