Diggin Livin Beehives

• Equipment compatible with two-way accessories allowing conversion to two-way nucleus colony.
  
• Equipment compatible with Natural Nest beekeeping (with a vertically oriented foundationless brood nest)
  
• Durable Construction;  All hive components are ⅞” in thickness.
  
• Boxes standard with beveled cleats and stainless fasteners.
  
• Equipment sealed with natural finish composed of all natural ingredients
  
• Western Redwood hive components are water-repellant and insulative.
  
• Redwood’s closed-cell wood growth translates into dry hives that don’t absorb respiratory gases.  
  
• Migratory Lids are two panel tongue and groove with four cleats
  
• Solid Bottom Board/ Hive Stand with ⅜ rim perfect for a cozy, defendable colony
  
• Professionally assembled wooden frames with wax foundation.
  
• Inner cover/Rim Feeder is a superior way to feed overhead, as well as a quiltable inner cover increasing insulation overhead.

(Patent pending two-way top-bar beehive system and method #62689313)

Diggin’ Livin’ Honeybee Hive Woodenware

Here on the family farm, Diggin Livin produces a limited selection of premium grade beehive components.  Our woodenware is produced with the bees in mind. Functionality and durability are the name of our game.  In keeping bees, we work this equipment hard and expect that you might also. The strength of our equipment comes from good design and lots of quality fasteners.  While we use custom measurements for our equipment, all interior dimensions are consistent with commercially available Langstroth-style equipment allowing interchanging of our woodenware with other 8-frame equipment.  We think that once you give our equipment a try, you will never be satisfied by the performance of any other hive again.

All our hive components are made from Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens).  This member of the cypress family grows here in the Pacific Northwest. It is our best choice for sustainable high-quality wood for the production of premium quality hives, which offers a superior environment for the bees. We use only second-growth redwood trees sourced from thinning projects in small private woodlots.  We work with a small family owned and run mill that specializes in outdoor finish grade lumber.

Due to its closed-cell wood structure, it absorbs minimal water and thus retains tight joints, and also has one of the highest R-value of any wood.  It is our best choice for sustainable high-quality wood for the production of premium quality hives, which offers a superior environment for the bees. Our boxes differ from the competition in many ways.  First and perhaps most important, our boxes are thicker.  Boxes and the decks of our bottoms and lids are made from wood 7/8” in thickness.  This means more wood in the right places, including a full ½” of wood next to the frame rest, as opposed to the typical 3/8”.  This makes a more durable and better insulated hive-body. This combined with our choice of wood, makes this hive significantly warmer than other hive bodies. In fact, Coast Redwood with its closed cell wood growth pattern, is one of the highest R-value wood available.  Coast Redwood is rot resistant and does not absorb much water, keeping joints tight for long life. Purchasing a Diggin Livin beehive also means you are supporting small-scale, sustainable forestry practices.  We source our wood from local landowners, including windfall and storm damaged trees.

Diggin Livin also employs a custom blended natural finish containing raw linseed oil, pine rosin, and Oregon beeswax for our equipment to give long-life while also maintaining a pure and natural environment for the bees.  

Hive Bodies

We manufacture eight-frame Western-shallow boxes, known by some as mediums.     Our hives (and all exterior hive components) are all made from boards of 7/8” thickness offering increased durability and insulation for the bees.  Thus our hives are larger by ¼” in external dimensions. This small increase will not limit the compatibility with other eight-frame equipment, having the same internal dimensions as other commercially produced hive bodies.  Instead of the typical 6 5/8” dimension for height, our boxes are 6 ¾” in height, allowing an additional 1/8” gap for the bees on the top bars. This provides a bit more ease when applying food or treatments above the bees. Box joints are rabbeted, leaving a full 1/2” thickness in the end board rabbets.   All hive-bodies come standard with cleats on the narrow sides of the box. Cleats have a 9 degree bevel undercut for ease of hold, even in gloves. Cut out hand-holds, which compromise the insulation and durability of the hive are not available. The interior walls of our hives are unfinished/ rough sawn lumber. This provides a natural setting for the bees and you will see how they take to them. Unfinished interiors promote the application of propolis, and is thought to contribute to healthier hive interior. All hives come with dado cuts on the interior of the end walls. This allows the use of a follower board (sold separately) for extra insulation on one side of the hive.  When removed, working space is produced for ease of moving frames and for minimal disturbance of the colony during inspection.
Our hive-bodies come in three grades.  Budget, Standard, and Select. Check with the store for availability of either Budget or Select hive-bodies as their supply is usually limited.

Select Grade Hive-Bodies

Select hives are constructed from tight grain wood, often heartwood.  It will not contain loose knots or large diameter tight knots with cracks.  It will contain few to no small diameter tight knots, and it might contain large-diameter tight knots away from rabbeted edges.

Standard Grade Hive-Bodies

Standard hives contain small and large diameter tight knots or knots with cracks away from hive-body rabbeted edges.  May contain occasional small diameter loose knots.

Budget Grade Hive-Bodies

Budget hives will contain large diameter tight knots that may contain cracks, they also may contain knots near the rabbeted edges of the boxes, and may contain loose knots.  While a little rough on the edges, these boxes are built durable and will hold up to many years’ abuse. We use up the majority of the budget boxes we make with our own bees!

Migratory Lids

We manufacture a standard migratory lid.  As with our hive bodies the deck is 7/8” for maximum durability, insulation, and minimal warping.  We grade our lid deck from our finest quality wood to insure no cracks. Our decks consist of only two pieces fit together with a tongue and groove joint.  Four end cleats are used to increase strength and to prevent warping. Lids are also built to facilitate the placement of a bottom board directly on top allowing stacking of hives for transport, and for helping hives retain heat in inclement weather.

Inner Cover/Rim Feeder

We manufacture an Inner Cover/Rim Feeder designed to replace the standard inner cover or a quiltable box.  Like our lids, our rim feeder is a two-piece deck of 7/8” thickness. As with other components, our Rim Feeder is made standard as as two-way piece of equipment with two holes and a division board (see photos).  With holes in the deck to allow the cluster access to feed placed above the colony, it also provides the function of an additional layer of weather protection for the colony. An 1 ½” rim around the edges gives good space for feed or insulative quilting.  As with the use of an inner cover, it can also provide a weather-safe and protectable upper entrance for the colony during the nectar flow with the use of a shim under the lid.

Bottom Boards

We manufacture a traditional solid-bottomed migratory bottom.  After years of running all our hives on screened bottom boards, we no longer feel the supposed benefit of mite drop was worth the notion that we were hampering our bees ability to thermoregulate and control humidity in the hive with open bottoms.  Instead, we have gone to using only a moderate sized entrance and a solid bottom board, leaving the bees in charge of ventilation. Two panel tongue and groove construction of ⅞” thick decks makes a cozy floor to keep the cold out. We manufacture our bottom boards with a 1 ½” rim around the bottom giving it a sturdy square base for your hive.  Our bottom boards come standard as two-way bottoms with a partial entrance on either short side of the box. We also manufacture one-way bottom boards for our customers with apiaries with restricted flight paths.

Frames

At Diggin’ Livin’ we manufacture frames the good ole-fashioned way.  Like our hive bodies, we only make one size, 6 1/4”. We use high-quality Ponderosa pine frames from the Northwest.  Our frames are built with wedge-bar top bars measuring a full ¾” thick, 3/8” thick end bars, and ½” thick bottom bars.  These are assembled and wired in our shop, before we add 100% pure beeswax foundation, embedded on the wires with heat and pressure.  Unlike plastic foundation, bees won’t hesitate to draw out fine comb on these frames in a hurry. Our frames are constructed with heavy-gauge fasteners (1 1/2” long, wide-crown staples for the top bar, and two 1” narrow-crown staples for each end of the bottom bar, as well as one for fastening end bars to the top bar for superior strength).  Produced in our shop according to time honored construction techniques, you simply can’t find these frames available pre-assembled anywhere else!