BYO Hive Workshop

Making your own hive can be one of the most rewarding aspects of beekeeping, it can also save heaps of money. Building your own hive costs less than half what a fully assembled and painted hive costs, this is particularly important if you think that you might like to have more than one hive.

There are four different types of timber hives that you might like to build. (I’m not of fan of plastic or polystyrene hives, so we won’t say anything about them here.) In this workshop, you can build and take home your own Langstroth or Warre Hive, including the lid, base, boxes and frames. If you have an unassembled Flow Hive, you can bring that, and we’ll show you how to assemble and paint or seal it. We have all the tools, brushes, and paint set up here. We’ll show you how to assemble, wire, and attach beeswax foundations to the frames. If you’re interested in building a top bar hive, we can get you started with plans and design, but there wouldn’t be enough time to build one completely. You can however, build a top bar travelling box, a smaller version of the top bar hive, which can be used for transport or to start a new top bar colony.

The cost of the course includes a $50 credit for materials. There is no charge for paint, wire, nails, etc. The cost of materials will vary depending on the type of hive that you would like to build.