Making Supers and Frames for the Hive

Electric current to melt foundation into wires We screwed the super, some use nails We are using the plastic ends for the first time

We haven't found a place to buy completely built hive box's so we made our own from the purchased parts. I would suggest looking to the Internet to buy your hive parts. Penders prices, as an example, seem reasonable. A Bee Keeper friend strongly suggested the plastic ends. He says they last much longer, and rarely will the ends of the frames split. I have one frame, in our existing hives, with this problem. Let's see how it works! One photo not taken was the two wires placed between the ends. This wire is to support the foundation wax. A crimping tool was used to tension the wire. Matt in the top photo is applying a small electric current into this wire to melt the foundation wax onto it. Why do we do this? First, we don't want the foundation to fall out of the frame. Second, our bees don't have to work quite as hard, as they use some of the wax to build their comb from. And third the "foundation" makes the bees build the comb in an orderly manner, making the honey extraction easier.