
DIY beehive - Gedxx
https://www.ikkaro.net/diy-beehive/
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kaikai
What? I’ve kept bees for years, and this is ridiculous. If you want to make a
diy hive that mimics bees natural nests, check out top bar hives. Don’t build
them using pallets, which are often treated with insecticides to avoid
spreading pests via shipping routes. Only opening your hives to harvest is
irresponsible, because in order to care for your bees and avoid spreading
diseases to neighboring hives you need to be monitoring for things like varroa
mites. This whole article is full of “yikes.”

If you’re interested in keeping bees, search for a local bee guild. They exist
all over the place and are usually very welcoming to new folks, with a wealth
of actually useful advice and resources.

~~~
GuiA
The guide seems to have been written a while back by someone from Argentina.
Is it possible that the concerns you raise here are geography/time dependent?
E.g. maybe Argentina doesn't have much of a parasite problem, or that when the
guide was written a few decades ago pallets weren't treated with insecticides.

(the author seems to have a following and be somewhat respected otherwise, so
I'm curious)

~~~
Dumblydorr
My brother is a beekeeper, I help him, that article seems to present a very
shoddy method that sounds unhealthy and risky for the bees

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MegaDeKay
"This hive can be armed with the wood that everyone has on hand, such as
pallet wood, or pallets, as they are called"

Be very careful should you choose to do this. Some pallets are chemically
treated to kill invasive species like pine beetles. This treatment could be
toxic to both the bees directly and to you indirectly via the honey.

[https://www.1001pallets.com/pallet-
safety/](https://www.1001pallets.com/pallet-safety/)

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nearbuy
Nitpick:

> I do not forget what Albert Einstein said:

> If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have
> only four years of life left.

Einstein didn't say this, nor is it true.

[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/27/einstein-
bees/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/27/einstein-bees/)

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beesNchickens
As someone who has known about Perrone and his hives for a few years and has
tried to follow his plans and directions, there is a key piece of information
missing from most of his literature. The bees that Perrone has are Africanized
and therefore way more aggressive and industrious. For those of us with
standard European honey bees, the cavity sizes are just too large.

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gorgoiler
It would be interesting to see if foundation, the thin hexagonal structure
which is used to encourage the bees to build out honeycomb frames in a regular
way thereby aiding extraction, could be replaced with a laser printed sheet of
paper with the hexagonal structure just printed on it.

What is the minimum viable prompting bees need to build nice regular frames of
honeycomb?

~~~
kaikai
Bees don’t need prompting to build regular hexagons, they do that on their
own. Pre-drawn frames are useful for getting them to build flat combs, that
can be removed and replaced in the hive without damage.

~~~
gorgoiler
Why is frame foundation embossed with a regular hexagonal pattern? Is it just
for aesthetics?

[https://www.betterbee.com/images/PDF%20piercofoundation_n.jp...](https://www.betterbee.com/images/PDF%20piercofoundation_n.jpg)

No slur intended re: “just for aesthetics” by the way, I respect how a lot of
amateur beekeeping is focused on prize winning.

~~~
Volundr
It's pre-printed with a hexagonal pattern to try to control the size of the
cells the bees will make. Basically, the bee will grow to roughly the size of
the cell it's grown in, and the size of the cell also controls if the queen
lays a worker or a drone.

Pre-printed wax cells tend to be larger than those that bees would make on
their own, on the theory that larger bees can collect more honey. They are
also printed small enough that the queen will lay workers instead of drones in
those cells, increasing the worker population, and reducing the drone
population.

Both of those practices have been called into question recently, as it appears
that the larger cells provide more room for varoa mites, and that allowing
your bees to regress to their natural size _may_ increase mite resistance.
Note: small cell beekeeping does _not_ replace monitoring your mite levels and
treating for mites!

Similarly, it's starting to appear that drones have a more complex role in the
hive than previously thought, and that artificially reducing their population
might not by ideal.

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jbsimpson
I already purchase my hives as pieces of wood that I have to assemble,
glue/nail together, paint, etc and I know that the measurements for things
like the bee space are correct so the bees won't gum it up. Always neat to see
these DIY projects, but I feel like pre-cut is about as much as I trust my
ability to measure and construct precisely.

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jszymborski
Link appears to be down for me. Mirror:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20191106011615/https://www.ikkar...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191106011615/https://www.ikkaro.net/diy-
beehive/)

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m463
I recently heard of a new type of beehive that should change the way
beekeeping is done, and create lots of new beekeepers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_Hive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_Hive)

[https://www.honeyflow.com/](https://www.honeyflow.com/)

~~~
jbsimpson
Flow hive is a cool idea, but its expensive, and a lot of people bought it
because they thought it automated beekeeping whilst in reality the majority of
the work in keeping a hive is maintenance, inspections, etc.

~~~
m463
Wouldn't this reduce maintenance?

And wouldn't it attract more amateurs who might not have kept bees?

(and won't the price come down?)

