Making the brood frames

Before the bees came, I had to make up some brood frames.
Be prepared for a tale of woe!

I had thought that beekeeping is all about precision - making sure all spaces are beespace and that all fits together snugly. Now, the DT teacher will tell me that wood is not a very precise material, but I didn't know it was that bad.

In order to get the side bars onto the top bar, strength of hand did not suffice. I had to use a mallet to get the two pieces together, as the space in the sidebars was too narrow. This often led to the sidebars splitting, though never into two pieces. I hope the glue I put at the meeting of sidebar and topbar will prevent them falling to pieces.

Bad top bars: knotted or split or halved

The bottom bars were very badly made, with some square cross-sections and sometimes going from one rectangle to another one, perpendicular to the original (how is that meant to work?).

Luckily I had no problems with the wax foundation tearing or breaking - it all slid in fine.

The nails are a joke. The number of times they bent or went all wrong directions is legion. Next time I will seek to borrow my friend's nail gun as this seemed to work well for her.


A lot of the top bars have knots in them at places you would want to drive a nail in or the bar you carve away falls into two pieces. How do the manufacturers get away with such shoddy workmanship?

These were all frames from Maisemore and I will try another supplier next time to see if the frames are any different.

Twenty brood frames all made up and ready to go

Anyway, I made up all the frames. The first one took me quite a time, but the more I made the better and quicker I got.

It's not a bad idea to have a quick look at an internet tutorial about making up frames before you start, just to make sure you have the process clear in your head. I used this tutorial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piHPX0FwLZM

My suggested equipment list is: mallet, small hammer (or nail gun!), pliers (to pull out the many failed nails), wood glue and a good, sharp craft knife. I did really not use a square, as I relied on the bottom bar squaring the frame.