Hive stand and roof

[flyboy]

I am considering building a stand to raise my hives off the ground and put a roof over them as there is a [lot of precipitation here in winter.

Does anyone have pics to give ideas on how to construct it? I have 3 hives but will probably make it large enough for 6.

[Joe D]

When I first got bees, I had an old dog pen with a  concrete slab.  I put up some post attached them to the cyclone fence post and put a roof on it.  I had the hives on  concrete blocks.  I would put plastic to keep the wind out in the winter.  Since then there is a deck for a house trailer about a hundred yards down the road it is 10 x 30 feet with a roof.  The deck is about 30" high I have moved part of my hives to that.  I walled up the north side of the deck with metal roofing.  The hives are still on a couple of concrete block under each hive.
Hope this helps a little.


Joe

[Michael Bush]

I made my stands out of treated two by fours.  Four eight footers and two four footers.  The four footers were marked off to put the eight footers between them at 4" in from the outside to the outside edge of the first 8 footer.  Then 16" to the inside edge of the nest 8 footer.  Then do the same from the other side back towards the middle.  This makes a stand where you can slide the hives back to the middle (where the front edge is on the front eight footer while the back edge hangs 4" over the back eight footer) or to the front (where the front of the hive hangs 4" over the front eight footer while the back is flush with the back eight footers).  With hives on it, it looks like this:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmisc.htm#hivestand

(click on the small pictures for larger ones)

These happened to be on a slope so there are other boards to prop them up on the ends and in the middle to make them come out level.  They hold 14 eight frame hives.