Hello everyone
I'm warming up to the concept used in e.g. the British National hive whereby the frame-rest is combined with the hand-hold, for use with long-lug frames (such as the British National or the Dutch simplex frame). However, the official British National hive design requires a fair bit of carpentry, and I would prefer a method that lets the wood store cut the wood to simple sizes which I simply have to assemble.
So the idea comes to mind to use exterior-grade plywood and "double-up" some of it. Has anyone has ever seen a similar hive or build, i.e. that does the integrated hand-hold and frame-rest using not massive wood but plywood?
Compare the British National design with my quick done-in-Microsoft Paint proposal below. I know the British National design looks simpler, but it requires more complex or more difficult cutting using a machine that I would have to rent.
(http://i44.tinypic.com/s4bfx4.png) || (http://i40.tinypic.com/e0svp5.png)
Your thoughts?
Thanks
Samuel
PS... the design on the right says "200 mm", so you can see that this particular image was taken from a 5-frame nuc's design. For a standard width hive box it would not be 200 mm wide but 410 mm wide. Anyway, the "200 mm" is not relevant to the question.
This video shows some of it (the top, not the bottom):
Beekeeping Forum making bee nuc boxs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo2QyyBteJY#)
Now I live in an area with 12" annual precipitation and have found that plywood trends to exfoliate and fall apart. My congratulations on your waterproofing of your chosen material. I think you get a little more rainfall than we do.
The Dcoates 5-frame nuc uses a similar concept, though only one layer thick. If you can control the plywood de-lamination issues, I don't see why it wouldn't work.