I just picked up a truck load of beautiful boards last week so I can make a whole lot of beehive components.
Here is the first batch of brood boxes that I made from these boards. The quality is really excellent and I am very happy with my wood purchase.
Almost finished for this batch. Next is a batch of honey supers.
Just a note in passing about the batch size.
I make my beehives in small batches of around 10 boxes.
There are many benefits to using small production batches:
- Fun/focus/quality: I do not repeat the same operation 100 times. That allows me to stay alert all the time, keep my focus better, keep the process quality up, make less mistakes, and simply have more fun.
- Space limitation: I just simply do not have the space to stock a lot of in process material.
- Low set up cost: A small batch like that is just enough to make setting up a machine or a jig cost effective.
- Low inventory: More frequent small batches allows me to keep my finished goods inventory low while still being responsive to customer’s demands.
