Carm asked:

> I am hoping that someone with more experience than I
> in beekeeping and in woodworking can help answer a
> question for me.  Has anyone used a Kreg Tool (also
> called a Pocket hole Jig) when assembling boxes?

No, and I'd not bother.  They might be OK for someone's
first few furniture projects, but they will add nothing but
cost to beekeeping equipment.

There are lots of "systems" like those.  The reason they
exist is that joinery can be ornery.  Various companies
offer "solutions" that replace a little thought and ingenuity
with mass-produced specialized tools and hardware.
I think that they are more trouble than the traditional
methods (except for "square-drive screws", which I think
will someday make the phillips head screwdriver seem
as quaint as Witworth wrenches are today).

Why not just go down to the public library and check out
a book on basic joinery?

Beekeepers and woodenware makers call the joints on
beehive components with interlocking fingers
"dovetail joints", but the proper woodworking term would
be "box joint" or "finger joint".

Box joints are easy.  Anyone can make a jig for their table
saw in an hour or less, and be cranking out supers as fast
as their dadoo blade can cut.

Here's a decent set of box-joint jig instructions on the web,
but the dimensions need to be modified for beehives (and
ignore the sales pitch for buying a dial caliper, too):

http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodmall/projects/boxjntjig.html

There are a few woodenware vendors selling supers with
what I would call a "milled corner joint".  These are fine,
and they minimize exposed end-grain but require stock
that is absolutely planar for the scheme to work.

If you do not yet have an adjustable dadoo blade, save
yourself about $40 - check out Cummins Tools:

        http://www.cuminstools.com

Much of the stuff Cummins sells is cheap "Made in China"
junk that I would not trust at 2 PRM, let alone hundreds, but
their adjustable dadoo blade is the same exact one sold by
Sears at 1/3 the price.  Carbide tipped, easy to adjust, and
it will likely outlive your kids if you only cut softwood into
bee equipment.  Here it is:

    http://www.cumminstools.com/tap/tools/6733.html

One more hint - stay away from Lowes, Home Depot, and the
other national chains when buying lumber.  Find a lumber yard
that is NOT part of a national chain.  The smaller guys compete
with the big boys by simply selling better quality wood at about
the same price, and their wood is more than worth a few extra
pennies a foot to avoid an half-hour digging through a stack of
so-called "Top Choice" lumber to find a dozen boards that are
not warped.  ("Lowes" seems to describe the quality of goods!)

        jim