Langstroth bee hive with locating pins

thingiverse

The Langstroth bee hive by Lay3rWorks is a very cool educational tool. It's also great for someone like me, who is not yet a beekeeper, to have a hive to play with. I printed in PLA and it is so slippery that I'm always knocking it over and spilling the parts everywhere. I simply added small holes through all 4 corners of each part. Then I glued a very short piece of 1.75mm filament into some of the holes to act as locating pins. This keeps the hive components aligned and locked together. You can now carry the assembled model without totally losing it and scattering parts everywhere. The holes printed a little small for me. I had to slightly enlarge them with a drill to get 1.75mm filament into the holes. Super Glue (CA glue) works great to secure the filament. You don't really need all 4 pins for each part. 2 pins diagonal works great. Put the pins on the top of each part, not the bottom. Starting at the bottom of the hive: put pins in the hive stand (see pics). Next, set the bottom board onto the stand and put pins in the top of the bottom board (mind which way is up or your entrance reducer won't fit). Now put the brood box onto the bottom board and put pins into the top of the brood box. Finally, put the medium super on the brood box and add pins to the top of the super. That's it. You don't need pins in the inner or outer cover.