Making sure that the boards are flush with the end of the rail, place 1 nail (2 ¼” galvanized) toward the end of the side rail. Tap all the pieces firmly together, apply glue to the side rails, and fit board assembly into the side rails. Here you see a bead of glue laid in the groove of the bottom board’s tongue-and-groove construction. I use wood glue when assembling all hive components. Or if you’d like to jump to a specific hive component, just click the appropriate link: Let’s just begin at the bottom of the hive, and work our way up. But if you build a bee hive from a kit, it’s unlikely you’ll have to buy any nails since they usually are included. So if you haven’t already, you might want to take a quick look at this page: the parts of a beehive, for a part-by-part description of a Langstroth hive.īy the way, I’ll let you know at each step what size nails to use – a common point of confusion for newbies. Note: This page consists of photos illustrating the process of building a standard Langstroth bee hive – by far, the most popular type of hive.

When you buy a bee hive kit, all you have to do to is just put the parts together and nail them. It’s really easy, but the first time through can be a little confusing.Īnd it’s a common complaint that hive kits generally come with instructions that aren’t terribly helpful (a few reviewers made that complaint about the kits I recommended above).īut the tips and photos below will help to make building your first hive easy. So if you’re a chronic procrastinator like me, try not to be – at least when it comes to your beekeeping! Got Your Kit? OK, Let’s Get to Building… I’ll have to order some. I expect it will arrive in time, but I’m cutting it plenty close. Turns out, though, that I was 3 sheets short of having enough foundation. I thought that I had everything on hand needed to build a bee hive. You do not want to get a call from the Post Office letting you know that your bees have arrived when you don’t yet have a hive ready for them.Īnd as it turns out, I almost put myself in that very situation! You Don’t Want Bees Arriving Before You’re Ready! But if it turns out that you’re missing something, or accidentally ruin a piece and have to reorder, you don’t want to cut it too close. In fact, I did everything except paint the hive in one afternoon. It doesn’t take two weeks to build a bee hive, of course.

It would be best to start a bit earlier, just to be sure that everything is ready on time. BeeCastle Complete Beehive Kit (100% beeswax coated)ĭon’t procrastinate like I did! It’s March 28, my bees are due in a couple of weeks, and I’m just now getting around to building a bee hive.Hoover Hives 10 Frame Langstroth Bee Hive Kit (100% beeswax coated.If you are only looking for a beehive kit here are my top recommendations: Hoover Hives Langstroth Starter Kit (including some tools).

MayBee Beehive Starter Kit (Including beekeeping tools).

Best Beehive Start KitsĪnd if not? Here are my top two beehive start kits: Before We Get Started…ĭo you have your hive kit yet? If you do, then you’re ready to follow along step-by-step as we build it. So for your first kit, just follow the instructions below.

But I still remember: building that very first kit certainly involved some head-scratching. ‘Course, I’ve had lots of practice through the years. Here’s my hive all set-up and with bees just installed the very same hive shown built on this page: You’ll see that building a honeybee hive from a beehive kit is really easy. If you’ll soon be starting beekeeping, you can build your hive right along with me, step by step. It’s time to build a beehive for my soon-to-arrive package bees.

Round bee hives