Affordable prewired assembled frames?

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The GG frames in Paul's link have vertical wires and conventional Hoffman shouders, while Denrosa (this year, at any rate) have horizontal wires, DN5 top bars and flat Hoffman shoulders.
I bought all the 14x12 frames Murray had at the Telford beekeeping show, they were wired 50% horizontal 50% vertical.
When I queried this, I was told you can specify wires either way….this will obviously depend on what they have in stock at the time of order placement…… whatever you want if pre- ordered.
They are definitely Hoffman and flat shouldered.
 
Just had a quote from Helen. Assembled frames come in at £3.04 incl P&P and VAT each. That's £1.30 cheaper than Gwenyn (looking at price for 11 frames) and £1.60 compared to standard assembled hofmann.
Brood or shallow? I'll dig out my spreadsheet at some point and see how that compares to last year. A pallet of just frames means the P&P is distributed better than having fewer bulkier items. Obviously a pallet of shallow frames works out better than one of deep frames by the same logic.
 
Just had a quote from Helen. Assembled frames come in at £3.04 incl P&P and VAT each. That's £1.30 cheaper than Gwenyn (looking at price for 11 frames) and £1.60 compared to standard assembled hofmann.
Isn't shipping free if you can pick it up from Murray en route as he heads down to his Herefordshire sites? I was thinking of meeting him on the A74 and saving myself the postage next year
 
Isn't shipping free if you can pick it up from Murray en route as he heads down to his Herefordshire sites? I was thinking of meeting him on the A74 and saving myself the postage next year
It might be but I live near Swansea and would cost me more in diesel there and back than the cost of shipping!!
 
Brood or shallow? I'll dig out my spreadsheet at some point and see how that compares to last year. A pallet of just frames means the P&P is distributed better than having fewer bulkier items. Obviously a pallet of shallow frames works out better than one of deep frames by the same logic.
brood. I will ask admin if I can put a message out this autumn to see if any beeks from South-Wales want to join for a big order (pallet worth).
 
Isn't shipping free if you can pick it up from Murray en route as he heads down to his Herefordshire sites? I was thinking of meeting him on the A74 and saving myself the postage next year
Bit weird replying to myself, but just for anyone else - Helen says they no longer transport bees to and from Hereford as they used, so the only option other than getting them sent, is collection from Telford when they're at the show.
 
Just spotted this thread while looking for something else. Not entirely comfortable posting this as its seems a bit like advertising but just want to answer the questions raised in the thread.

Yes. all out frames are horizontally wired. The few vertical ones are when we do a special for a customer who orders them that way. Its the international standard way to work, standard UK frames are overelaborate and fiddly, and using wired foundation is both expensive and less robust. The V on the sidebars is not required and very rare to find outside the UK. Its two more cuts on the part and adds a few pence for no gain and also raises the spectre of misassembly especially with non grooved sidebars.. The V in mixed directions is a proper pest.....

The origin of doing them this way is for our own use...............but they are strong beasts of frames that will last a lifetime... and yes..if happy nailing up pine frames, possibly seconds, you can do it cheaper or far cheaper...but we pay staff to do all that for you so its not like for like..and our main target is the bee farmer to whom time IS money. Some of the biggest in the land are getting them from us, usually, but not always, waxed and hive ready. We do them in full loads, so if buying for ourselves why not offer them to others.

Soda boil them after you carefully cut out the comb and rewax with the correct size of foundation (not expensive). we tension them with drawing pins rather than crimpers.

Yes, shipping costs.........we keep the prices as sharp as we can so don't include shipping and if you can get cheaper carriage then you can have them picked up...we only charge the carriage at cost..no margin on shipping.

Website will be going live very soon and our range will all be there. Frames and wax, boxes, bees and queens.

GG went to the vertical wired frames from another maker almost immediately after starting with us.....that fine. I have no beef with him for that..its whatever you prefer. We don't really like vertical wired BS broods (ours are mostly Smith) as it can pull the tops and bottoms in if kept tensioned...best pulling on the short side as it bows in less...but vertical wiring is often not tensioned. The new stock now also has an extra horizontal staple in under the lug as a few people reported the top bars coming loose under robust handling.

A few still keep SN1 style frames in their supers with castellations, and although these are NOT our preference we are now offering these too.

Apologies to those who might be annoyed by a commercial type posting. Happy to pay a sponsor fee.
.
 
Apologies to those who might be annoyed by a commercial type posting. Happy to pay a sponsor fee.
I’m not annoyed.
You can pay sponsorship if you want to put your website up on the banner at the top.
Till then all this is really useful info.
 
Just spotted this thread while looking for something else. Not entirely comfortable posting this as its seems a bit like advertising but just want to answer the questions raised in the thread.

Yes. all out frames are horizontally wired. The few vertical ones are when we do a special for a customer who orders them that way. Its the international standard way to work, standard UK frames are overelaborate and fiddly, and using wired foundation is both expensive and less robust. The V on the sidebars is not required and very rare to find outside the UK. Its two more cuts on the part and adds a few pence for no gain and also raises the spectre of misassembly especially with non grooved sidebars.. The V in mixed directions is a proper pest.....

The origin of doing them this way is for our own use...............but they are strong beasts of frames that will last a lifetime... and yes..if happy nailing up pine frames, possibly seconds, you can do it cheaper or far cheaper...but we pay staff to do all that for you so its not like for like..and our main target is the bee farmer to whom time IS money. Some of the biggest in the land are getting them from us, usually, but not always, waxed and hive ready. We do them in full loads, so if buying for ourselves why not offer them to others.

Soda boil them after you carefully cut out the comb and rewax with the correct size of foundation (not expensive). we tension them with drawing pins rather than crimpers.

Yes, shipping costs.........we keep the prices as sharp as we can so don't include shipping and if you can get cheaper carriage then you can have them picked up...we only charge the carriage at cost..no margin on shipping.

Website will be going live very soon and our range will all be there. Frames and wax, boxes, bees and queens.

GG went to the vertical wired frames from another maker almost immediately after starting with us.....that fine. I have no beef with him for that..its whatever you prefer. We don't really like vertical wired BS broods (ours are mostly Smith) as it can pull the tops and bottoms in if kept tensioned...best pulling on the short side as it bows in less...but vertical wiring is often not tensioned. The new stock now also has an extra horizontal staple in under the lug as a few people reported the top bars coming loose under robust handling.

A few still keep SN1 style frames in their supers with castellations, and although these are NOT our preference we are now offering these too.

Apologies to those who might be annoyed by a commercial type posting. Happy to pay a sponsor fee.
.

As Murray states, the time V cost ratio works out a no brainer even for us and it gave the apprentice rainy day work waxing the frames we had.
The Frames are a lot stronger than conventional seconds IMHO.
 
They're good frames too. Nice to hear the horizontal pin has been added as I know exactly what he means although wouldn't say I handle frames robustly!

A long while ago I bought complete colonies from Ged Marshall and the frames in them just had a vertical staple through the top bar into the side bar.
Those frames have been exposed to Lots of curses 🤬 over the years.
Now as they are recycled a horizontal pin is added.
I bought around 200 supers also and a lot of those were not pinned at all.
 
A long while ago I bought complete colonies from Ged Marshall and the frames in them just had a vertical staple through the top bar into the side bar.
Those frames have been exposed to Lots of curses 🤬 over the years.
Now as they are recycled a horizontal pin is added.
I bought around 200 supers also and a lot of those were not pinned at all.
I have a few of Murray’s frames and have had a few staples start to pull out of the head of the side bars if it’s in a very propolising hive.
 

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