okay it's a happy Sunday everyone today I'm doing a tutorial on how to make
these hive visors which are designed to shade the front of the hive and the
landing board as well as keep rain off some of my early designs were not that
great so I've arrived at a final product here and I'm gonna share it with you
step by step the reduction in temperature here if it's a 90 degree 89
degree day is about 15 to 20 degree drop in the shade
so these hive visors work really well this white one here a little rough rough
cut lumber on the sides I'm gonna replace it with my final design that
works really well and it goes on a 10th frame or an eighth frame hive so we're
gonna get right into that and as I said I'm gonna show you all the products
they're gonna be listed down in the video description everything you need to
make it except the wood of course which you're gonna have to get locally the
bees are Fanning themselves really heavy right now there's a lot of nectar going
on they're trying to reduce it they're moving air out of there at about
10 miles an hour well these are my three designs that I'm abandoning and I'm
showing you my final one that works the best here it is all painted up and I
showed it in a recent video and several people asked if I would show
step-by-step how to make it and how to paint it these are the hardware pieces
you need quarter twenty thumb screws quarter twenty receivers stainless steel
2-inch square drive self tapping screws that's it we're using poplar I got this
at the local hardware store so I'm departing from my normal using rough cut
lumber that I have here and I have red oak for the struts because it's nice and
stiff two inches on the struts and of course a 1 by 8 is actually 3/4 by 7 and
a half and here is the red oak and it's just under two inches it was actually a
four inch piece that I ripped cut and once the lengths going to be 16 and 3/8
would be good or you can go down to the sixteenths if you
want to and we're gonna precision cut this look at that I split the line there
when you make these lines and make your cuts make it a high precision process
if you can't cut like this I mean don't be sad I realize I'm like an expert at
this watch this one let's split this line exactly so perfect cuts every time
truth is this is not that critical look at my dust collection system
and knew you wanted to know about it because there was no dust blowing that's a
feedbag now we got to move this the 30 degrees because we're gonna cut the
struts at 30 degrees and then we're gonna put a 30 degree bevel onto the
visors themselves 9 to 3/4 inch length and that's cut to cut there you go look
at that split the line right on that little point there again you know don't
be hard on yourself if you can't make cuts like this it's no big deal
I realize that this is precision work now of course I made six struts and we
have three visors so we're now we're gonna have to put a bevel on the visor
so we're over at the table saw here I've had this table saw for 20 years and I
have to shift it to 30 degrees and remember we also had cut the struts at
30 degrees and we can line it up here I don't want to make a sharp corner on
that edge there I'm gonna leave it a little thick because I found that the
thin corners don't last very long so if you notice I left about a little over an
eighth of an inch blunt face on the end there by the way do not do this without
parental supervision follow all safety guidelines I am NOT demonstrating safety
here I'm just showing you how to make my hive visors and here we are three of them
thought I'd make three might as well just as easy as building one and what
size drill bit am I going to use to pre-drill those struts
mmm three hundred thousandths or five sixteenths highly precise where you put
it there somewhere around here is it wrote there and we're gonna drill it
true it's helpful if you have a drill press because you want them to
be nice and straight and I put them in pairs and drill the hole in pairs that
way it looks like you knew what you were doing and if you really have to have a
precise location for that hole that I'm drilling here equidistant from top and
bottom and of course from the end so it's two inches one inch on center one
inch from the end how about that now we've got six of them drilled and we put
them in pairs just like this facing each other you want to make sure to put these
receiving quarter twenty threads in because they're both can be on the
inside if you line them all up wrong you might end up putting one on the wrong
side of the wood then you have to pull it out and so on not that I would know
about that but I'm telling you put it on a nice firm surface and just hammer them
in it's that simple these are galvanized so
they're gonna last a long time in the weather now we've got those grommets in
and we're lining everything up looks good our bevel angles match now what I'm
going to do is we're going to glue it together first and then we're going to
screw it together to make it really strong
so again red oak struts and we're using tight bond to premium wood glue they
make a stronger one but this one's good enough interior and exterior we are
using it as an exterior look at this precision gluing application here mm-hmm
again if you can't do this I mean I realize that what I'm demonstrating here
is a highly skilled procedure but if you're sad about it just wait for the
rain and go outside and take a selfie and you know work it out and come back
in and try again now I slide it back and forward to get
the air out creates a nice suction there it'll hold them in place if you don't
have clamps you can actually just slide it back and forth get contact like this
walk away and let it dry on its own but I'm gonna clamp it you know because I'm
doing a demo and I want it to be strong for you
So here it is clamped up and look I have an overhang on the end that's to
accommodate the clamp handle and I'll even list these clamps down to the video
description if you're interested in them and we're glued up now we have to finish
the glue push it into those nice little cracks and anything left over there just
smooth out the glue because we're gonna paint it we don't want that to show
and again I'm using precision tools while doing this and we have all three
glued up and then I put them on the floor you can put you know wax paper
under them or something if you don't want the glue to stick and now while the
glue is drying let's mix up some paint this is random pain I have laying around
some of it has been here for a while the black all the way to the right we have
Linda Blair green there we've got the nice deep red so if you want to make
some gothic colors and stuff with the black we can do that we're gonna do a
custom paint job on this too so you're gonna want to watch that this black has
been out in the garage for probably ten years and I just found it and decided to
use it we're gonna work from dark to light the only thing that matters is
that all the paint is latex so you can match them up and make them up so if you
have oil Base don't mix that with latex and now it's been several hours we'll
pull the clamps off and now here we have a hive visor ready to go now I used to
put these in the bee yard just glued and thought that would be strong enough but
it wasn't it failed so we have three of them ready to go the glue is dry but now
we're gonna put those reinforcing screws in there two-inch self-tapping stainless
steel square drive screws and we're gonna pre-drill the holes pretty
drilling with a 3/32 inch diameter bit you have to know that and again where do
you put the holes it's not critical just put a couple in there we'll put a couple
screws in there they're just from the top for those you have to see the
details and keep in mind we clamp it and have the glue on there for several hours
before we did this plenty strong as a placeholder now while we reinforce it
with these screws the screws are really taking the tensile load here and we go
all the way in again we'll put the list of what screws I'm using what materials
I'm using down in the video description and they're all in so four screws per
visor all done ready to go now we have to paint them since people wanted to see
how I do the paint job that I do we're going to do that here and you know what
when it comes to painting a visor it really doesn't matter what you're doing
yeah you can't be judged this is art you know this is your expression so do what
you want so I'm gonna work from dark to light here reason that old thick black
latex paint that I've had laying around we're gonna build it up what really
matters here is that you're covering the wood and you're preserving it against
the weather so how you do that really doesn't matter if you want to do some
kind of dramatic design to help your bees find their colony find their hive
quicker visually then feel free to do that
bees respond best to high contrast and bold geometric signs and we're just
gonna build some red in here we're gonna fluff it up work it in and of course I'm
just following no guidelines whatsoever I ran out of yellow wish I had some of
that and in the previous ones of course they've been green or white you can
paint dark colors if you're trying to cause the snow to melt off in winter you
can have pure white if you just want to reflect the heat in summertime if you
live in a hot region and I'm just slinging paint with no particular
concept in mind notice that I'm left-handed because it
is only left-handed people who are in the right mind and let's just smooth it
out yeah so I'm taking the cloth here and I'm pulling paint off so I put it on
real thick we're gonna in it down and we're gonna brush work it all in here
and create subtle undertones with the red and the black and then we're gonna
come in with a lighter color right after that what you're watching here is
happening at 400% or four times normal speed so even with a lot of coffee in me
I don't paint like this and here comes the green do to do too
just have fun with it put the paint on any way you like I mean again you can't
go wrong this is just it's paint if you've got kids and you want to turn
them loose on these visors and they can paint anything they want they can do smiley
faces it really doesn't matter you know you're just putting out something in the
bee yard that is functional but it's also an opportunity to express yourself
artistically you want to glue stickers on it go ahead and I'm just gonna keep
that in the green here again what I've called my Linda Blair green put some
dabs on here you can't go wrong let me just keep just keep putting stuff on
here and people gonna say hey what what kind of plants are those right there
well I don't know it's just the contrasting colors so the bees can find
their hives here it is all done added a little white there mess it up so we have
completely messed up visors here you want to face a judgment you want people
to look at that and ask you what you were doing what that's about now so you
just paint the whole thing green so we just came back and did it all with thin
layers of green and wiped it out so now we're gonna have to put these in the
bee yard now here's the thing I built these for ten frame Langstroth hives and
we have the quarter 20 thumb screws here but these will also fit on eight frames
and I'm gonna show you how so let's test fit it here's a ten frame medium super I
just have sitting around in the shop there and look that's what it looks like
so there is a little clearance on the sides and we use the screws to hold it
on there and it's good to go but now what happens when it's an eight frame
so here's the a frame box look at all the space do we have to build another
visor for that nooo we can just take some one-inch wooden shims and take up that
space now before I cut the little shim pieces I drill in a little bit and
that's just so that these things will hang on the quarter 20 threaded screws
and not slide out or fall out when you're trying to put them on the hive so
they just serve as a placeholder so it won't slip out once you put it on in the
quarter these will face the screws you note over
here to the cut-off saw cut them all it's easier of course to drill them
first rather than trying to drill these little segments and we make a bunch of
them and then I'm going to demo how to attach it so here we go will you that
doesn't matter they're a little over an inch thick each and then
start the thread through here a little bit and then put your little block on
there put that against one side then the other side and there you have it
so these blocks also serve not to damage the wood so if you've got a fancy
beehive use these shims they won't let the screws dig in and you can make
your hive visor wider even for the ten frames if you want to put a shim in
there and they hold the position great and get my hands walking by and here we
are at the beehives this is the flow hive two, seven frame ten frame lengths
for outsides and these bees really benefit from number one being in the
shade number two having the rain not fall all over the landing board and get
it wet but I have a white early version of my high visor here and we're gonna
swap that right out and put this new fancy green one in so just show how easy it is
you just it's all manual you know just thumb screws take them off put it on
here's the thing too because it's adjustable like that you can move it
down lower to the landing board you can raise it higher if you want you just
walk out there and make adjustments any time you'd like to now if you want to
make sure that it's level just look at the joints on the corners of the box and
line this up with either side there there you go and then just turn the
thumbscrews and that thing is on so the install just a few seconds and as I said
before you can move them lower if you need to if you get a heavy storm coming in a
we haven't tested these in winter time yeah but of course we're going to we're
gonna see if it benefits them we'll probably move it a little lower to get
some snow off again here's another hive that we have the white early version on
although I do like this one I'm going to swap it out my final
version is better and darker green of course won't catch the eye a white visor
like that you can see clear across the field so if you
have you're behive somewhere or you don't want people to spot them steal
your hives or steal your bees you could camouflage the whole thing you know
paint them darker colors darker greens and then here you go very easy
installation and we're done how easy is that so the hive visor to the left and
right here are identical so now we just run down the row show you all the
different ones that by the way is a recent swarm capture these are Saskatraz bees
and this one they're doing fantastic and the little screen entry
reducer there is in this is another capture of a swarm that was taken out of
an old house and this is one of the earlier visors not so hot but that's a
flow hive 2 seven six frame and then we have a standard flow hive ten
frame there and out here two more the Saskatraz bees are on the left and weaver
bees are here on the right and they are venting like crazy because we're in a
nectar flow so now early morning you're getting the Sun but does the Sun gets up
peak day it's going to pour shade them as I said brought the temperatures 15 to
20 degrees on that landing board as well as keep the rain off so they're dehydrating
their honey they're moving air at ten miles an hour
that's some recent testing that people did to see how fast the air was moving
out of the hive and that's impressive they cycle it
through the hive wherever they need venting and that's it I hope you
appreciate the tutorial thank you for those of you who asked for it and I hope
you are satisfied with the information I shared here today and I hope you make
your own and share about them on YouTube thanks for watching I hope that you have a
fantastic Sunday enjoy the warm weather