Hi:

Have kept bees for 30 yrs and also being a woodworker and with Western Bee
(who makes all of Dadants woodenware) just a bit down the road and also
working with Fred Rossman, I offer these comments:

Glue:  Most commercial folks that I know don't use glue.  They do put in an
extra nail or staple in each frame - that's popped through the top of the
end bars, into the top bar, just under the ear (or shoulder) of the top
bar.  That horizontal nail or staple locks the top bar to the end bar, more
or less eliminating pulling the top bar out of the end bar when a frame is
propolised into a hive body.  Many hobbiest's use common white or yellow
woodworkers glue.  Save your money, it will come apart in the humid
conditions inside a beehive.  Use one of the moisture resistant glues like
Titebond or, go for the pricey stuff, and use Gorilla.  Having said this, I
haven't tested to see what, if anything, these glues might off-gas into the
hive.


Joints:  Dadant uses finger joints - and its great fun to watch their
equipment produce the frames and hive bodies.  Again, commercial folks are
more worried about the box coming apart during handling than a bit of paint
flaking, and they plan on re-painting, although unless they work in very
humid climates, they go years without.  Boxes look pretty bad, but the
corners are still together.  Fred uses a rabbit joint BUT he also uses a
naturally rot resistant wood.  In that case, his boxes also hold together
just fine.

We use pine or fir and have worked in many different climates.  The main
advantage of the finger joint is that the top corners of the boxes stay
put.  With a rabbit joint (in soft wood - THIS DOESN'T APPLY TO THE NICE
BOXES FRED PRODUCES), the top bit of the front and back boards of each hive
body will eventually swell and part at the corners, leaning outwards.  The
next time someone puts a hive tool to the end of a frame to pop it loose
and either happens to put lateral force against the top of the box, or gets
in a hurry and uses the top edge of the box to lever against, the whole
strip breaks loose along the wood grain line.  We have lots of boxes where
you can see the ends of the frame top bars without opening the hive because
of this.

Finally, for years I was too cheap to buy a nailer or staple gun.  Finally
bought both.  Use staples - the long shank staples really hold, probably
because as they go in, each leg of the staple tends to be pushed around by
the wood grain, so that the staple becomes a bit splayed, making it hard to
pull out.  A nail on the other hand is easy to pull out, unless you can get
some type of ridge shank nail - and I haven't seen these in sizes that you
can put into a frame.

Also, what size depends on your hand-eye coordination.  From my
perspective, the longer the better -- but most of my students can't drive a
long staple straight into the wood, so the ends blow out of the wood.
Don't try to pull these out.  Just cut them off flush with the wood.

Oh, we also use a jig to keep the parts perpendicular to each other and
steady them while you drive the staple or nail.

Cheers

Jerry