Plans for building a beautiful hive lid

[Sting]

Hi there everyone,

I ordered the Flow Full (10 frame) from the original Indigogo campaign (think it might be called something different now).

Now it has arrived I realise that a regular lid won’t fit and I’d like to build a lid like the ones pictured in all of the Flow advertising. I’ve contacted Flow and they don’t yet make them for individual sale. I’ve also looked on the Bee Thinking website and they don’t seem to do them.

I enjoy woodwork, so am happy to start from scratch, but though someone might have plans (in metric please!).

It’s the cute little ‘rooftop’ type lid that I’m after.

Cheers, Paul

[Dawn_SD]

Not metric, but this guy has plans and they look like they are for a 10 frame Lang:

Hive Tops and Bottoms

[Bruce_Choate]

I just recently made a second roof for my other hive, just copied the original, don’t have measurements in metric…

[Sting]

Hi @Bruce_Choate, thanks for these images, they look great.

Are these lids left ‘open’ up top with lots of room for the bees to move around (and potentially to wax up? or do you install them on top of a flat ‘lid’?

[Bruce_Choate]

Made a inner cover too

[Bruce_Choate]

Just finished the bottom board today

[Bruce_Choate]

Letting the first coat of Tung oil dry, then one more coat.

[Bruce_Choate]

It’s easy to extend the measurements to fit a 10 frame, most of it was cut out of a 2x6 and then used siding for the roof

[Sting]

Looking good.

Pretty sure Tung oil takes months to cure off before it is waterproof and won’t leach out of the timber with the rain. Put plenty on!

The Chinese used Tung oil to waterproof boats, but they didn’t use the boats straight away.

[Bruce_Choate]

I’m in SoCal we hardly see rain…