Making your own frames question?

[Nao57]

So I wanted to ask a few things about making your own frames to people?

I appreciate any comments.

Also, I am not trying to cut anyone out of business but Cal Ranch near me wants $10 dollars per beehive frame! Huge cost! And I could get frames on ebay or whatever but something seems wrong with the postal service quotes, and in some cases they are trying to charge me more for delivering beehive parts than for the total cost of the order. NO joke.

So if the usps continues to implode I think people will have to make stuff on their own more. People just can't afford the price hijacks of paying MORE for delivery than for the product. (What the heck is wrong with them?)

So that's what prompted this project.

I wanted to ask what kind of wood would you use to make beehive frames? (I want something really cheap but still fairly durable. However, I am on a limited budget.)

Also, how many deeps can you make with optimum space cutting and measuring from 1 standard size 4 by 8 sheet of plywood? (I tried to look this up but there weren't many comments on it elsewhere and what were there were worded funny and not clear.)

Here's another problem;

Deep Plastic Bee Foundation Sheets - Pack of 100 | Betterbee

This plastic bee foundation is especially for wooden frames and is equal quality to the one-piece plastic frames. These are ideal for installing in old wooden frames and are less work than a crimp-wired style and less cleaning.

www.betterbee.com

This site quotes the frame size for deeps being 16 3/4 " long.

But I find that confusing, because I have a sample frame in front of me that is a wood frame. The measurements of this one are; 19" long from outer tip to outer tip (with the tip being the part that hangs on the deep). The outer edge of the frame measures as 17 3/4 from end to end (excluding the tip), and 17" for the inside edges where the actual foundation meets from end to end.

My question on this is; are frames all made uniform? I'm confused why the measurements on the sold site on better bee are different from this sample? Aren't frames supposed to be uniform size? Is this not the case? Some sites don't even show the measurements for the frames so you don't know. And should I just ignore go with the sizes I'd measured on the sample? The answer to this also depends on if they make all the frames uniform?

I am new to beekeeping also. And on a budget.

 

[MuldrowHomeFarm]

We have been Beekeeping for 12 years and own about 600 hives.
Frames are standard sizes:
Deep or Brood frames 19x1 1/16x9 1/8
Medium Super frames 19x1 1/16x6 1/4
Shallow Super frames 18x1 1/16x5 3/8
Making your own frames is a difficult and time consuming project. We make all of our own woodenware, except frames. We buy them from Mann Lake Beekeeping Supplies. Purchases over $100 ship free in the US. Frames should only cost about $1.50 each. Unless you are buying drawn comb or frames with bees already working on them.

We use pine to make our beehives as plywood is cheap but we need our equipment to last about 10 years on average.