I got myself some standard frames for size and built along the National hive measurements, but I was using oddments of stuff I picked up from skips and such, doing things like making the inner side of a hollow wall out of thin ply from the back of a dumped wardrobe, castellated as spacers for the frames along the top.
I thought about trying again recently, I stopped when varroa turned up, but control methods have got much better.
There are arguments for staying to standard sizes, people don't just do it that way from habit.
A standard brood box is about the size the bees want to make a healthy size brood, a queen only lays so many eggs a day.
You want to keep the super frames and the brood frames separate, queen excluder comes in standard sizes.
You say easier to lift, but the brood box is best left where it is unless you are hiring it out to someone for pollination. If you do move it it is best slow and careful, bees wax isn't too rigid.
Mostly you lift supers, small and light when empty, and even if they get full of honey they are not too heavy. If you can find good nectar supplies continuously you are only going to take them off twice a year
I guess varroa has reached everywhere by now, I bet the fine gauze for the false floor that keeps them down is another thing that comes standard.
Frames pretty well have to be standard, assembling them is one thing, but starting from scratch, not worth it, they're cheap.
Hives are the expensive bit but they are made precision cut from best timber planed flat to look lovely. This the bees don't care about. Something with a bit of finish on it, like the side of an old chipboard kitchen unit, is good, the bees don't stick it up so much, then a bit of 2"x1/2" around the edge and a bit of thin weatherproofing, like ply on the outside. The thickness of the box walls does not matter, so long as the inside hole matches up.
My brother found the local police put out signs after an accident and didn't pick them up, good size to make a roof cover with a deep overhang.
Getting up to the roof, remember it is good sometimes to put on a feeder.
Do you get honey bees about much, a nuke hive, just five brood frames with wax in is a good way to catch a swarm if someone is careless about taking out queen cells, I would put them about 15ft up a tree on the shady side, they usually worked, I would just walk round and check if bees were flying every couple of months.
