Wood-Cutting List for a Ten-Frame Langstroth Beehive

The Langstroth-style beehive — named after Rev. Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth, who invented it in 1851 in Massachusetts — is the most common style hive in North America. The following tables break down the ten-frame Langstroth beehive into its individual components and provide instructions for how to cut and put together those components.

Lumber in a store is identified by its nominal size, which is its rough dimension before it’s trimmed and sanded to its finished size at the lumber mill. The actual finished dimensions are always slightly different from the nominal dimensions.

For example, what a lumberyard calls 1 inch x 6 inch lumber is in fact 3/4 inch x 5-1/2 inch; and 1 inch x 12 inch lumber is in fact 3/4 inch x 11-1/4 inch. In the following tables, each Material column lists nominal dimensions, and each Dimensions column lists the actual, final measurements.

This hive design makes use of rabbet cuts, dado cuts, and finger joints.

If finger joints are just a little too tricky for you, you can use rabbet joints for the deep hive bodies and the medium super. A rabbet joint may not be as strong as a finger joint, but with some weatherproof wood glue plus the nails, it should do the trick.

If you choose the simpler rabbet option, you need to cut a 3/4-inch-wide-by-3/8-inch-deep rabbet along each corner of the short sides of the hive bodies and the short sides of the medium super. Also, you need to cut the long sides of the hive bodies and mediums to 19-1/8 inch when using the rabbet option (rather than the 19-7/8 inch length when using the finger joint option).