After pricing out hive kits and such, I decided with my woodworking abilities I could easily build my own hives. Off to Menards, Number One Son in tow and we get back home with a pile of pine. Boxes, piece of cake. Plan everything out and off we go. Everything's slick as can be and I saved half of my cost on the supers. Here's a pic of Ben tacking the corners.
Started on Frames today. Bought select pine boards and we spent about two hours dinking around to cut out around 40 top bars for Dadant style frames. Came in for lunch and thought I'd check on the price of frames just to make myself feel better about how much I am saving by making them myself. Oops. A case of 50 frames would cost me about $2 LESS than the raw materials I need for making 50 frames. Not to mention the intensive labor to one-off these buggers. Good thing I only bought enough wood to make the first 20 frames!
Live and learn, I guess...