Honey House

[Samaria Honey]

Well after harvesting my first year have learned that outside on the deck is not the place to do this task. I'm looking to build a honey house on a small scale 16x30 is the dimension I am considering. My question what is the do's and don'ts would like some good input.

[jim lyon]

Bee tight, running water, floor drains, wide doors, washable walls and at least 10 feet of headroom to state a few more obvious things. Personally I would only have a few strategically placed windows as they constantly need cleaned. Depends a lot on your budget and what your future plans are.

[Samaria Honey]

Concrete floor is a must what about walls to use that is washable

[jim lyon]

I would suggest checking with your local building center for a washable tub surround type of material that comes in 4x8 sheets. It will most likely need to be installed over plywood. You can do the entire wall or I have seen it done on just the lower part.

[BeeGhost]

Home Depot sells sheets of plastic siding that are used in store bathrooms and such, the are 4x8 and you just glue them to the wall or screw them in. My dad used them in his butcher shop at his house and they work just fine.

[indypartridge]

Check into your State's regulations for a food-processing building. Here's a start:
http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/fcs9/fcs9100/fcs9100.pdf

[Grant]

Yes, those platic siding sheets work fine, but $$$$$$$$$

I built a new honey house last year, 36' x 56'

My processing center is divided into three areas. First a "hot" room where I unload my supers. It has electric heat and a dehumidifer, and one window with a bee escape. Not hard to heat in July and August! Supers are stacked in a criss-cross fashion on furniture moving carts (Lowes, $19.99) rather than clumsy hand carts. Fans help circulate the air. Supers sit in here for a day or two, but any longer and the hive beetles start hatching

The second room is my bee-free extracting room. Nothing special. But it has A/C. I roll the stacks of supers in and empty supers out. Buckets of honey go into my storage area through another door.

The third part is my bottling room. This sits toward the front of the building with a nice sunny window and linoleum covers the floor with walls painted a nice lemon yellow. I have a work desk and this is where the general public is allowed, not in my other two rooms. I also have a dishwasher in this room to wash buckets and jars.

Think of everything that's wrong with your present situation. Dream of the ideal. Think product in--product out. Supers come in, honey goes out in buckets. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE YOUR STORAGE NEEDS! (Yes, I'm shouting). Plan to build twice as large as you need now, plan to spend twice as much money and plan on taking twice as long as it should.

The other two sections of my honey house include parking for my truck and supers in need of repair. The other section is clean for bucket storage and cases of bottles.

This honey house was two years in the making, and I must confess, was my wife's idea. Guys ask, "Grant, how do I get my wife to build me a honey house?"

The answer is simple: fill your garage, family room, basement, empty bedrooms with all your honey, farmer's market set up, and all that other beekeeping cr*p and she'll be very agreeable! We now park cars in our garage!

Grant
Jackson, MO

[JRH]

I'm looking to build a honey house on a small scale 16x30 is the dimension I am considering. My question what is the do's and don'ts would like some good input.

Before you go ahead add up the total cost of the building and equipment - then divide that number by the number of pounds of honey you think you will process in the building in the next five years (to be more realistic use three years). If the number you get is more than $2, hire somebody else who has sunk the money into the house and equipment and spend the money you save on a nice vacation every year or dues at a golf club.

[Acebird]

Well after harvesting my first year have learned that outside on the deck is not the place to do this task. I'm looking to build a honey house on a small scale 16x30 is the dimension I am considering. My question what is the do's and don'ts would like some good input.

The answer to your question is totally dependent on the volume of honey you produce and if there are regulations imposed on your volume.

[The Honey Householder]

I think Jim hit on the head FRP is the way to go. Just build a new honey house and wanted to use the FRP but when with the cheaper and easer way with corrugated steel on wall and ceiling. Floor drains are a must.