Now for the bees.
I started with plans from online, but being an amateur woodworker with a decent shop, I tweaked the plans in several ways. I was ready to butt-join the ends to the sides this morning but it was too early for woodworking so I went to learningbeekeeping dot com where I learned that in Central Texas the high heat can result in comb failure and that he makes his Texas hives wider and shallower to prevent heat related comb failure. (Whew!!) So I chopped 1 1/2" off the sides and widened the base by 2".
Next week my county's bee club is having an installation demonstration (in Langstrom hives though...). My wife and I will go introduce ourselves and watch the action. However, they said they've already sold out of the 250 bee packages they ordered for this spring. Kind of worried we'll have a hive but no bees! :-P
Two questions - is there a recommendation on the ratio of brood bars to honey comb bars? I have 12 BB and 16 HB currently. Seems heavy on the HBs.
Anyone thought about putting a landing pad on the INSIDE of the hive? I was just planning only drilling some holes in the end. It dawned on me I could put a staging bar on the inside so that bees can defend or fan from just inside the holes.
Here's the hive, viewing port and all. All that's left is to build a roof and cover the view port.
This picture shows the two slots I created for the screen and a cover panel underneath.