Can a bee keeper save money building Langstroth hives rather than purchasing them? I am a DIY person and I enjoy working with wood, so the idea of building my own hive is appealing. Plus the $300 price tag on a new hive is a little hefty for a hobby apiarist like me. Is it worthwhile to build your own Langstroth bee hive? That is undoubtedly a frequently asked question among beekeepers. Well, this past winter I set out to learn the answer.
An addition to my various animal and gardening related hobbies, I enjoy spending time in my woodworking shop, especially during the winter months when most homesteading activities have slowed down. I entered this past winter determined to construct my own Langstroth hives in order to save some money. My plans changed, however, when I received a surprise gift of chickens for Christmas. Instead of building bee hives as planned, I ended up constructing a chicken coop. With spring quickly approaching, I faced the decision of whether to purchase or build new honey bee hives. But that didn’t keep me from searching for the answer to my question about the cost effectiveness of building beehives: I resulted to crunching the numbers!
I started my number crunching escapade by calculating whether purchasing the beginner hive kits from Kelly Beekeeping actually saves money. Surprisingly, I found that the kits actually are not any cheaper than purchasing all of the pieces individually. Interesting. This insight led me to look at each hive part singularly to determine the potential cost savings afforded by making them myself. A deep hive body from Kelley beekeeping is around $23. The material cost to build a deep hive body is at least $19 for the lumber alone (1” x 12” x 8’), so by building my own hive bodies I could save $4. Out of the $4 saved, I also needed to subtract the cost for nails and glue. And that’s not accounting for the labor necessary. More savings potential exists if you plan to construct multiple hive bodies simultaneously based on an efficient use of lumber. Begrudgingly, I concluded that taking the time to build a hive body to save less than $4 is not worth it for me. I investigated the cost savings for building other hive parts with the similar results, with the exception of bottom boards and frames. Building bottom boards rather than purchasing them could potentially save $10. From a materials cost perspective, the only other hive part that appears to allow for significant savings as a DIY project is frames. It is possible to construct a large number of frames from a single standard $3 2×4 board. But assembling purchased frames is a time consuming endeavor, which means building frames from scratch will inevitably necessitate an even larger amount of time. Whether building hive parts is worthwhile really comes down to whether you have the time available to construct pieces yourself, knowing that doing so will generally only save you a few dollars per part.
Building Resources:
So if building your own hive is barely cost effective, why even bother to write this post? Well, in my course of figuring all this out, I found several useful resources and ideas that I would like to share with all the do it yourselfers out there.
If you are interested in building your own hive parts, whether to save money, build a superior hive, or for some other reason, go to the Michigan Beekeepers Association to find plans. This website has detailed downloadable instructions for all Langstroth hive parts and many other beekeeping necessities. It is an invaluable resource! (I printed hard copies of all the plans in case this website would ever cease to exist.)
What to Build:
I did end up building one hive body this year because I received an INCRA I-BOX Jig for Box Joints for Christmas. I will do a full product review once I use this jig on a few other projects but man alive is this a cool jig! It’s precise, easy to use, and perfect for hive bodies. In the past I have cut box joints with my table saw by eyeball. This jig will produce centered tight fitting box joints at whatever width you want. It can be used with a table saw or a
Inner cover made from scrap wood and two hive bodies: one purchased and one made using the Incra Ibox Jig
router table. I have used this jig once and I am completely sold on it! If you want to build your own hive bodies using box joints, you need the Incra-I-Box jig!
While building an entire Langstroth hive may not be worth the cost if you have to purchase new materials, many parts such as inner covers, outer covers, and bottom boards can be built with scrap wood, significantly reducing the cost. I needed three new inner covers this year. Rather than spending $40 purchasing new inner covers, I used scrap wood I had laying around my workshop to build all three for free.
If you are new to beekeeping or perhaps just considering keeping bees and are looking at the startup cost, I’ll be the first to admit that beekeeping isn’t free. The $300 price tag for a new Langstroth hive can be daunting especially when you add another $100 for other beekeeping equipment and an additional $100 for a package of bees. The initial financial investment is certainly a barrier to entry for some. But, there’s a solution! I suggest building a top bar hive. My first hive was a top bar hive that I built myself out of cedar wood for less than $100. The wax foundation alone costs this much for a Langstroth hive. Sure, top bar hives are harder to manage, and, unless you really know what you’re doing, you won’t harvest an abundance of honey, but you will learn a lot, enjoy a little honey, and perhaps you’ll find that the top bar will fulfill your needs, spike an interest in beekeeping or give you the confidence you need to purchase a Langstroth hive in the future. If you think you may want to try your hand at a top-bar hive, I highly recommend reading Top-Bar Beekeeping by Crowder & Harrell.
Freshly painted swarm traps
Another piece of bee equipment that is I recommend building yourself is a swarm trap. Purchasing a swarm trap will likely run you $60+. But you can build four swarm traps for that price! This spring I built four swarm traps, kept three, and sold one on Craigslist for the price it cost me to all four. With my remaining three traps, I caught four swarms and then took them down because I didn’t need anymore. This saved me $500 when compared to purchasing packages. Building swarm traps is a worthwhile way to utilize your woodworking skills to save money as a beekeeper.
In conclusion, the main reason Langstroth honey bee hives are so expensive is because of material costs, which unfortunately means that building your own hive won’t save you a significant amount of money! Using scrap wood or making several of the same piece at one time helps cut costs, but building equipment certainly can be time consuming. I’m sure I will build a piece of bee equipment here and there, but I will most likely continue to purchase the vast majority of my hive parts. Hopefully this information is helpful to some of you. As always feel free to comment and add your own thoughts and experiences.
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