This will not convert to Laravel 4 DB Fluent.
$result = $this->database->query("
SELECT     node.title,
           node.title_slug,
           node.item_type,
           node.item_class,
           node.content,
           node.id                   AS id,
           node.lft                  AS lft,
           node.rgt                  AS rgt,
           (COUNT(parent.title) - 1) AS depth
FROM       menuitems                 AS node
           CROSS JOIN menuitems      AS parent
WHERE      node.menu_id   = '$menu_id'
AND        parent.menu_id = '$menu_id'
AND        node.lft BETWEEN parent.lft AND parent.rgt
GROUP BY   node.id
ORDER BY   node.lft
");
Need to convert this to Laravel 4 DB Fluent.