HomeSweetHome Bee Hive by Hodgo1

Last crawled date: 2 years, 10 months ago

Home Sweet Home...for native bees. This easily printable, minimum filament home for bees is the perfect addition to your garden. In fact, the whole home has been designed so it can be printed quickly and easily without supports!
It features threaded entry holes at the front and rear for easy, safe budding to create new hives. There is a recess to hold a perspex sheet between the base and roof which allows direct visualisation of the growing hive. This can be removed once the hive has grown to allow the bees access to a specially design honey storage section under the tiled roof.
I recommend printing the bee home in light-coloured PETG. This will help cool the hive, and also be strong enough to handle the elements. If you live in a warmer/cooler climate than the average, I suggest printing the base and roof parts with as little infill as your printer can handle (I used 2%). This will allow you to make small holes in the model and fill the inside with expanding foam from your local hardware store. This helps enormously with insulation and will make your bees happier on those colder mornings/warmer days. As with all native bee hives, a cool, shaded position that receives a bit of morning sun is best.
Print all pieces in the orientation they come in for best results. I've deliberately left most of the pieces in separate files. This allows you to print the fences, pillars, door and windows in different coloured filament incase you don't want to paint your bee home.
Print list:-
1) Roof Right-side x 1 (If your bed is >400mm you can print the whole roof at once, but I found printing the two halves is better anyway)
2) Roof Left-side x 1 (If your bed is >400mm you can print the whole roof at once, but I found printing the two halves is better anyway)
3) Base (If your bed is >300mm you can print the whole base at once. If not, just slice it down the middle and join afterwards)
4) Porch
5) Pillars x 4
6) Windows x 7 (or however many you want. I like 3 each side and one in the middle at the top but go for however many you like)
7) Door x 1 (Or two if you want a back door as well)
8) Front fence x 2 (depending on your printer, you may find it easier to print with supports, but not necessary)
9) Side fence x 2 (depending on your printer, you may find it easier to print with supports, but not necessary)
10) Plug (this is the cap to plug up the rear entry hole once your colony has grown)
11) Male joiner (to join to an existing hive, or for when you're ready to join on a new hive to your bee home)
12) Female joiner (as above. Print as many male/female joiners as you need to join the hives-a shorter distance is better)
Enjoy!
P.s, this print is fully scalable although I wouldn't go below 75% size as this may not give the bees enough room for adequate brood cells. Remember to scale the male and female joiners appropriately otherwise they won't screw in!
3D PRINTING SETTINGS
0.2mm layer height
50mm/s for all pieces
Supports not needed but may help on fence pieces
About 4-4.5days worth of printing total
I used 1.1kg of filament total, but this was with absolutely minimum/no infill on all pieces. You might find you want a bit more infill so I think 1.5kg is probably a safer estimate.