On Sunday I started work on the bee shed project. See the first post for the background and design of this project.

Here’s the old potting shelter, along with a cart load of materials and tools:

It being a warm day, the beehives were active for the first time this year, busy with their cleansing flights, where they clear out dead bees and poop a lot:

My first step was to straighten some of the posts that weren’t quite vertical, using my post level, a mattock, a soil scoop, and a rubber mallet to knock them into position:

I did that for three of the posts:

Next I cleared out the debris and smoothed the ground to be somewhat more level, using some boards and a shovel; it still has a slope, but less lumpy than before:

Then I adding some weed mat, both as a barrier against weeds (not very likely once enclosed) and against burrowing animals:

On top of that I added some interlocking rubber flooring panels:

Finally, I trimmed the weed mat to fit around the posts, and anchored it in position with metal stakes:

Next up, I will mount the 2×6 boards for the walls. The bottom boards will go over the weed mat to avoid having a gap. Stay tuned!