BUILD YOUR OWN BEEKEEPING EQUIPMENT

Pisano, Tony (2013) BUILD YOUR OWN BEEKEEPING EQUIPMENT. Storey Publishing, New York.

Text Build Your Own Beekeeping Equipment How to Construct 8- & 10-Frame Hives; Top Bar, Nuc & Demo Hives; Feeders, Swarm Catchers & More ( PDFDrive ).pdf - Published Version Download (22MB)

Abstract

Beekeeping is a fascinating adventure, whether you have one hive in the backyard to help pollinate your garden and supply a little honey to family and friends, or enough hives to produce honey for sale at your local farmers’ market or co-op. When I decided to get honey bees after a season of observing and helping my friend Paul Dugal, I jumped right in with both feet and really wanted to be immersed in the process. I ordered five packages of bees from Betterbee, in Greenwich, New York. I cut, ground, and filed an old lawnmower blade into a hooked hive tool. I scavenged the local landfill for cans to build a homemade smoker, and I built two complete hives plus most of the parts for the other three, minus the frames. Bear in mind that everything didn’t come out perfect. My boxes were a little too wide and the bees attached some extra comb to the sides. The spring I used for the smoker bellows was a little weak, and the nozzle was made from copper pipe fittings, so it didn’t puff out clouds of smoke like the fancy store-bought models. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that I made them with my own hands, and they worked. At the end of the season, which, as beginner’s luck would have it, was a banner year, I extracted 400 pounds of honey from those five hives! I will never forget it. Why should you build your own beekeeping equipment? The sheer pleasure of doing it yourself is reason enough. Continuing the tradition of people working with their hands and solving their own problems is another good one. By the time you are finished, you will have a much better understanding of the parts that make up a hive, how they are constructed, and how they all work together as a unit. You can find and use sources of scrap wood that will save you money and keep stuff out of the landfill. I guess a harder question to answer would be: Why not? Most of the projects presented here have detailed step-by-step instructions to ensure your success on the first try. I’ve done my best to get things right by building each item in the shop, taking down notes and making sketches, writing up a plan, then going back into the workshop and using these instructions to build it again and tweak if needed. The projects are all centered on the table saw as the main power tool. I will assume that you have the basic skills needed to operate one, or know someone who does. (The saw operations in this book are very standard and straightforward, so if you need to ask a friend or neighbor with a saw to make some cuts, you won’t owe him or her too much beer. . . or honey.) With this and a small variety of other tools, you can build every project shown here. And if you don’t have access to a table saw,you can substitute with portable saws and a router. The chapters are arranged somewhat in order from the bottom of the hive up to the outer cover. There is a separate section on building 8-frame hives. Go in order from beginning to end or jump around; the choice is yours. You can browse the book and start with the simplest projects first, like a hive spacer or entrance reducer, and work your way through the harder ones as you gain confidence and skills. None of the projects are all that hard, and once you learn to make the basic cuts you’ll feel like a pro. This book is not meant to be the last word on building beekeeping equipment. If it were, then I would have failed miserably. What it will do is show you how to build entire 8-frame and 10-frame hives (in traditional Langstroth style) that will be ready for frames and bees, as well as a top bar hive (if you want to keep things basic), and many other projects that make beekeeping easier. Hopefully the book also will spark your own imagination and creativity. By all means, use it as a reference and a starting point. Make changes and improvements to the projects in these pages,and share them with others. Come up with totally new ideas. That’s how we make progress. Whatever you do, don’t just sit on the couch and read through these pages. I want you to anticipate the smell of fresh-cut pine,the sound of a hammer driving home a nail, and the sight of a beehive as it materializes right before your eyes in your own shop. Lay the book on your workbench, crease the pages, and get them dirty. Put on your safety glasses and measure and mark. Flip a switch and listen to your table saw sing. You will be all the happier for it,and so will your bees.

Item Type:	Book
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD61 Risk Management
Divisions:	Politeknik Penerbangan
Depositing User:	Ms PKL 2 S1 Unair
Date Deposited:	11 Feb 2022 02:57
Last Modified:	11 Feb 2022 02:57
URI:	http://repo.poltekbangsby.ac.id/id/eprint/564

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