An integrated hand-hold/frame-rest made from plywood only?

[ugcheleuce]

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.

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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.

[ugcheleuce]

This video shows some of it (the top, not the bottom):

Beekeeping Forum making bee nuc boxs

[Vance G]

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. 

[Robo]

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.