I will be showing how I make bamboo bee frames. this reduces the cost of bee keeping and uses sustainable materials with very good results. I hope to help people make bee keeping more affordable and inspire bee keepers to be as fastidious as the bee.

I have made the frames the exact size as the pine frames. They fit into the box and the  extractor tha same way as the normal frames. They have less of a depth guidance for de capping but after a few goes you get used to it.

I get about 2 to 2.2kg per frame same as a well built standard frame. The  weight of the frame is about less than a pine frame, making the box weight a less. The Bamboo has more silica content and so I believe that it is more resiliant to mould and fungus contamination. I wire the frame in a diagnal fashion and use the pins that hold the frame to hold the wire as well. The wire is passed through the centre of the frame and hold the wax sheet and allows the bees to build out to the bamboo which is about 8mm from the sheet allowing the cell depth to  be defined by the bees. They hang well in the box but they need to be spaced equally in the box as i have found the bees will make and un even comb if they are not.

I have a lot more in the field research to do but i’m pretty excited about the initial results.