Honey Bee Box

This is a honey bee box I made for a friend. It has interlocking joints that were created using a Rhino/Grasshopper script. I decided to spice it up a little bit and give the box some personality.

The goal was to laser etch/cut the exterior of the box, and then build the interior honey frames by hand.

Step 1: Inspiration

My friend's farm is called "Lulu's Garden". I took her farm logo, and then mashed it up with the JD honey whiskey label. This served as the main inspiration for the box graphics. One side of the JD label has alot of text. Instead of leaving this side of the box blank I added the lyrics from Tom Petty's song "Honeybee."

Step 2: Designing in Illustrator

Using Illustrator and AutoCAD I designed the box. There are actually two boxes; one for the bees to live in and one where they make honey. The one for honey is the one with the Jack Daniels graphics. The other was covered with a honeycomb pattern.

Step 3: Rhino/GH Script for Interlocking Joints

I spent a number of hours researching different ways to create interlocking joints using Grasshopper. In the end my friend and fellow Grasshopper fanatic Jo Kamm helped me out with a script he had made for similar projects.

Step 4: Laser Cutting the Box

The box was laser cut at a local Community College in KCMO. In the future I will definitely need to be more conscious of overlapping lines that cause extra printing time. Otherwise everything came out nicely.

Step 5: Assembled Honey Bee Box!

The design came out great! The joints locked perfectly and all the graphics were legible. Unfortunately it was so nice that the farm I gave it to didn't want to use it for honey cultivation. They plan to use it instead for displaying the honey at local farmer's markets.