# What types of wood can I use for my bee hives



## hemichuck

I am building a lot of my own equipment mostly from pine scraps and some poplar that I pick up around work.I have acces to a lot of oak cutoffs and a lot of rough cut cedar.What are the pros and cons of using these woods for hives?


----------



## Joseph Clemens

hemichuck said:


> I am building a lot of my own equipment mostly from pine scraps and some poplar that I pick up around work.I have acces to a lot of oak cutoffs and a lot of rough cut cedar.What are the pros and cons of using these woods for hives?


Just about any wood will do. I personally love to use Cedar, but it splits easily, so care must be used, especially if you assemble with nails vs screws. I pre-drill pilot holes and use coated deck screws.

It might be problematic to try to assemble supers using more than one species of wood in the same box since the different species will expand and contract at different rates. In my experience oak would make some very durable supers, but they are going to be much heavier than Pine, Poplar, or Cedar.


----------



## randydrivesabus

I would use whatever is available but oak would be more difficult to nail/screw together than pine or poplar, and as Joseph said, oak would be heavier. You could use the pine and poplar for the supers and use the oak for bottom boards and inner covers and outer covers where the weight isn't that significant.


----------



## hemichuck

I probably wouldnt be mixing wood in an individual box.There always seems to be a bunch of oak around for little or nothing.A little harder to work but it would make some beautiful boxes.


----------



## Dave W

White oak will last "forever". But you better own a crane


----------



## hemichuck

I'm 6'2" and weigh 365 so I can probably lift them.


----------



## sqkcrk

hemichuck said:


> I'm 6'2" and weigh 365 so I can probably lift them.


I don't care how big you are or how young you are, after you build one hive out of oak and another out of poplar you will wish you hadn't built the oak one. Un;ess you never move the thing. But hey, go ahead.

Do you suppose that there is a reason why the equipment companies, such as Root and Dadants, have used pine varieties down throuigh the years? I'm sure that there is more than one reason, but relative lightness is probably way up at the top of the list.

Whatever floats your boat, hemichuck. I'm sure you aren't concerned about the resale value.


----------



## fish_stix

hemichuck; it's far easier to learn from other peoples mistakes, rather than your own! Oak is not good for beehives!!!


----------



## indios

i use eastern white cedar, for my honey supers, mediums, and clients claim they can smell the cedar in the honey?? , use a breathing filter when you cut the wood, its not good for your lungs. AND I have tried to lift a full super, (9 1/4 ") from the top of four others, its heavy! so forget the oak.


----------



## Ted n Ms

I use eastern red cedar never had any complaints. Use an air stapler no splits.


----------



## Alex Cantacuzene

I would like to try eastern red cedar with MitrLok joints done on the router table. It would be interesting how that material behaves being routed. Right now we have enough equipment so I will not be making any more, but some day.....The beauty of those joints is that there are no nails, no screws and no endgrains showing, just water proof glue. Our existing pine supers and some hardwood plywood supers work great with these joints. Take care and have fun


----------



## hemichuck

I'm not really that bullheaded but I was trying to get by cheap by using what I have access to.I wasnt really concerned about resale value because I dont plan on selling any of them.I'm just kind of doing this as a hobby(beekeeping and wood working) and I just get some satisfaction out of knowing I built the stuff myself.I would imagine that the commercial outfits use pine because it is cheaper and more readily available not to mention a lot easier to work with than the harder woods.The one question I was really concerned with is whether the cedar would leave some residual taste in the honey which someone already mentioned.The cedars around Kentucky are very aromatic so I wondered what effect it would have on the honey.I know the bees dont mind oak because there is a feral bee hive in my oak tree out back.I also noticed that in the UK thay build a lot of cedar hives.It is probably different than the cedar we have here.I also need to get a bunch of supers built over the winter because I have 10 more hive of bees coming next spring from a buddy down south(who told me he builds his hives from cedar)
My wife cant even pick up my shallows now when they are full of honey.Most of the deeps I have built are out of old shelf boards out of my pallet racking at work.Thus far I've built screened bottom boards,inner covers,outer covers,feeder boards,and screened dividers.I'm just starting to do my frames and shallows.I also built a bee-vac.Thanks for all of the answers here,I'm just trying to learn something.


----------



## Ted n Ms

No residual taste or smell with red cedar.


----------



## Myron Denny

I build bottom boards from eastern red cedar, they are very aromatic when first built, after 2 weeks on a hive the bees mask the cedar smell.

We have lots of eastern red cedar, I would like to try building medium supers, I read all the information on this topic, any more suggestions. It is my intent to use plastic drawn foundation, is this going to create problems?
Myron Denny


----------



## fafrd

I have access to some inexpensive redwood and am thinking about building a hive body out of it - anyone have any experience wth redwood for beehives and/or opinions on whether redwood is OK or should be avoided?

-fafrd


----------



## Joseph Clemens

I build some tops and bottoms out of redwood. I don't see why it wouldn't be good for supers too.


----------



## Beethinking

I use Western Red Cedar for all of my hive bodies and Douglas Fir for top bars and they both work splendidly. 

Matt


----------



## Jeffzhear

I prefer pine. White pine is popular here in the NE and light. Dip it in rosin and wax and it lasts and lasts.

I stay away from pressure treated as well.


----------



## fafrd

Thanks Joseph. Anyone else have an opinion on whether Redwood would be OK to make a hive body from (I want to make a double wide box - 33.5" wide - to hold 21-23 frames, and I will not be moving it much once it is in place)? Any other experience or thghts appreciated.

-fafrd


----------



## Tony2Toes

Out here in Sacramento CA, pine is pretty expensive. The big box stores all carry Doug Fir lumber (untreated) and Redwood. Doug Fir is by far the cheapest. Is there any reason NOT to use Doug Fir other than the fact it doesn't hold up really well? That is, I might get a 3-4 seasons out of it, probably a few more if it was primed and painted.


----------



## sakhoney

I have some redwood tops & bottoms that are 30 years old and still have bees on them


----------



## aunt betty

Oak and yellow pine both are NOT "outside wood". Don't even try.


----------



## psfred

Redwood is fine, will last a long time if it's heartwood. Keep it painted, and be careful nailing, it splits easily.

Oak will work just fine, but will add quite a bit to the weight, and if it's any of the red oaks, keep it well painted, red oak is NOT rot resistant. White oak is, but still splits very easily and weighs even more than red oak. 

You can use anything you like, but I wll repeat, you should use a single species of wood for each box as they have different expansion and contraction rates with moisture changes, and hard split prone wood may split the length of the box. Not an issue for the bees, but splits let water in through the resultant cracks in the paint, and will promote rotting.

Whatever you use, I suggest keeping it well painted and hence waterproof -- all wood lasts longer outdoors when well painted. Making boxes and frames takes up enough of my time, I don't want to be repeating all the work in a few years because they rotted!

Peter


----------



## huskermonster

Do you paint that red cedar, I have red cedar also and I was told to use tung oil they look great but I have only been 1 year outdoors but still look great. I plan to build 50 more mediums but cannot decide if it is worth the money for red cedar, will these boxes last long than pine boxes?


----------



## aunt betty

Slightly off topic but this pointer is worth it's weight in gold to anyone who has split a piece of wood with a nail.

Pick up a nail. ANY NAIL will do but it's easier to see if you pick up a big one. 

Pick up the nail and look closely at it's point. You should notice that it's smooth on two sides and sharp edges on the other two. 

Call the smooth sides a chisel point and the other two sharp edges a knife point.
Now try and pound some nails close to the end of a piece of wood like cedar that is prone to splitting.

If you are careful and turn the nail so that the sharp knife edges are perpendicular to the wood grains the nail will cut thru the wood and not split it or not as often. Try turning the same nail 90 degrees where the chisel edge is parallel with the wood grain and it splits every single time. A very old carpenter took the time to show me this so I'd quit burning up his wood pile by splitting and wasting so much. Someone will suggest dulling the point on the nail by pounding on it backwards. My way works better. Trust me I used to pound 5000 16-penny nails a day. (framing) That's 100# We put on cedar siding for like 3 years straight. Have pounded a few thousand pounds of them split-less nails too. Split-less nails rofl.


----------



## Cleo C. Hogan Jr

aunt betty said:


> Oak and yellow pine both are NOT "outside wood". Don't even try.


WHAT????? Virtually every barn in Kentucky is built with oak, inside and out. Overwhelming majority are not painted, they last for years.

What would be the difference in a full pine deep, with brood, pollen, and honey that weighs 84 pounds, and a deep made from oak, but, had a little less honey, or brood, or bees, and also weighed 84 pounds. The weight of empty boxes is not really important, and no two full boxes will ever be the same, regardless of wood used. Even if the deep made from oak weighs 3 pounds more empty, I doubt if you can tell the difference when it weights 84 pounds, and the pine weighs 81.

I make my catcher boxes out of oak, don't paint them, and they have been out for years.

The main reasons for commercial bee suppliers using pine is, ease of work, and cost of the wood. Much harder to work with oak and cedar than pine.

cchoganjr


----------



## gww

I use about any type of wood. I saw it and lots of times after letting it season I can not tell what tree it came from. I don't paint and can conferm how much harder it is to work with hard woods then pine. I haven't made any from cedar yet but am about to start curing some. Oak is heavy. I have some boxes that have lenght wise splits and the bees don't seem to mind. I have had some warping expesially at the ones with finger joints. This leaves some pretty long gaps between the boxes and seems to change at times. I tried duct taping some of the gaps and it increased bearding enough that I took the tape off and decided to let the bees propolize what they didn't like. My boxes kinda suck but so far the bees are alive, growing and not absconding and so I am happy. I had some made out of old barn wood that I used for traps and the biggest rot I got (pretty quickly) was where I put cleats for handles. Resessed handle probly doesn't gether the type of water sitting like a cleat does. I like the cleats better when working the hive but but may make them just short enough for a handle insted of the full box lenght.

The barn wood that got some rot was probly 100 years old before I made traps out of them. I leave everything out in the weather even hives that don't have bees in them yet.

So, In my view if you can get it cheep enough and have the extra time to work with non-standard thickness boards. The bees won't care but mass production building will be much harder.

I will know more in a couple of years on how long the oak, sycamore and hickory and maple last. 

Cheers
gww


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Here is a US Forest Service study that tests the comparative life of various _untreated/unpainted _woods ...
http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/bridges/documents/tdbp/decayres.pdf

One of the summary charts from that study ...








Note that in some of the species, both heartwood and sapwood were tested separately. The various oak species, including white oak and red oak, heartwood and sapwood, fared quite well.

Overall, in the warm humid environment of the Mississippi test site, wood decayed markedly faster than in the Wisconsin test site.

As far as cedar and redwood goes, note that the average cedar or redwood board in the marketplace today is likely mostly sapwood, compared to boards available decades ago that were largely heartwood. These days the focus with regrowth trees is to get them to a marketable size as quickly as possible and cut 'em up to recover the investment. As a result, there is much less heartwood compared to sapwood in each tree. _Heartwood _redwood and cedar sells at a high premium and is likely a special order item.

.


----------

