New beekeeper - made my own frames, will they work?

[psfred]

I wouldn't bother to make just a few frames, way too much work for very little reward.

I've made a couple hundred.

Do them "production" style -- cut all the blanks for top bars (I split a 2 by into the correct width, then split the other way to make two top bars from each slice) that you think you will need. Cut the taper on the ends, then cut to width, then split, then set up the dado for the sides, cut them all, set up the dado for the bottom cut, cut them all, etc.

That way you only waste a couple getting the set-up right and can pound them out by the dozen, doing all the cuts for all of them before changing the set-up. You can store the parts for years, no reason not to make a big pile.

The chief advantage to me is that I want to use narrow frames in the brood nest, and want them to have 3/8" between the top bars. Have to make 7/8" or 15/16" top bars to do that. Easy enough if I'm making the whole thing, eh?

I bought two eight foot 2x10s the other day, should be able to get all the frames I need out of that with maybe some 2x6 cut up for divided bottom bars. One 19" block makes 16 top bars, I definitely need 34 more to get four shallow supers per hive, and I'll be needing another dozen boxes next year if all works out, should come out about right.

It's something to do in the winter, after all.

Peter

[dmaddox]

This is PERFECT!!! Thank you for the feedback. Some of the frames I built are very neat - others.....not so much. I'm going to put the junky ones in bait hives and 5/frame nucs and just roll with it. To those concerned about time/waste - I agree, however - I made these on a whim in the cold winter months when the wife was watching downton abby and other shows i dont have interest in - I just tried my hand at it.

With that being said, if one breaks...../shrug who cares. salvage what i can and move on. In my two main hives (im a first year) I'm using only the commercial/best frames in the hives.

Thank you all - for a wonderful information rich thread!

[Cub]

The frames look great. The bees won't care if there is a knot or two here or there. I doubt the scout bees report back to a swarm that a new tree is unacceptable, because of excessive knots!

If you want to go even cheaper, grab some slabs and sawmill scraps if you have one nearby. Since you are ripping all of them, all the rough edges will be cut smooth, and you can get all you will ever want to use for free.