Are 14x12 brood boxes better?

[Smith21]

What are members opinions on the use of a 14x12 brood box as to using a standard national brood box.

What are the pros / cons ?


Regards


Kevin

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Pros - no need for brood and a half or double brood for expansive colonies, no need for extra boxes of stores over winter

Cons - Frames less easy to manipulate, heavier, queen harder to spot

 

[the naked beekeeper]

I'm sure Rab will be along to write down his pros and cons, but for me:

the pros are a big, deep brood box, eliminating the need for extra brood bodies which may, or may not be compatible frame-wise.

The bees should have more than enough stores in their brood box, so no need to overwinter with an extra body and the the beekeeper can more or less safely take away all the supers as his/hers.
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The frames are hella awakward and clumsy to handle IMO. Way too deep. Easier to drop. I get on better with broader frames and shorter lugs.

The foundation in my experience is hard to get drawn out properly. I seemed to get holes in the corners more.

It is harder to make splits as in all likeliness, a colony won't need 2 14x12 Brood bodies...
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Personally I much prefer the Commercial, which if you want a brood body that is still compatible with your BS equipment is the way to go IMO.

 

[drstitson]

"The frames are hella awkward and clumsy to handle IMO. Way too deep. Easier to drop. I get on better with broader frames and shorter lugs."

any thoughts then on jumbo LS? broader still + deep and with short lugs?


"The foundation in my experience is hard to get drawn out properly. I seemed to get holes in the corners more."

why do you need perfect full frames of comb? we're not talking beauty contest - rather a functional hive. you're also unlikely to want to spin your brood frames. bees do what they feel necessary - they like shortcuts between frames.

"It is harder to make splits as in all likeliness, a colony won't need 2 14x12 Brood bodies.."

use either stacked nucs OR dummied down brood boxes.

 

[Nellie]

I think there is an element of judging the needs of your bees involved, if you're using double brood or brood and a half then a 14x12 might be a preferable solution, if your bees are 'happy' on a single national then theres no real benefit to going 14x12 or commercial.

I prefer the longer lugs on a 14x12 over commercial frames and feel they're a nice fit for the brood while leaving plenty of room for the colony to store pollen and nectar/honey.

I don't need to feed after removing supers and don't end up with the first super having a lot of pollen as I did with nationals.

Colonies with smaller brood nests don't always fully draw out frames.

Standard nationals can be converted to 14x12s but get the extenders that go on the bottom of an existing brood box rather than the top. If you don't get on with then it's then easy to revert back to a standard national brood box.

I don't find the frames that cumbersome and have no problem with the perceived fragility of combs even on the foundationless frames but they definitely need handling with a little more care than a national frame.

For me, finding the queen on 11 larger frames is easier than on across 22 on a double box system and inspecting is far less of a chore, but that's my preference.

You can still use your old national frames for drone brood (culling).

Other downsides?
There's no getting away from the fact that a 14x12 is a lot heavier but how often do you really move the brood boxes?

If you don't like Hoffman frames you're basically out of luck when it comes to choosing frames.

If you've any aspiration to sell nucs then you've additional faffing around if you want to offer nationals but I dare say there's enough of a market for 14x12 framed nucs.

That's about all I can think of to be honest. I like my 14x12s, it's a system that works for me, I think if you're considering changing it would be worth also looking at commercials as another alternative, but I think the initial switch is easier and cheaper going national to 14x12.

 

[Skyhook]

"It is harder to make splits as in all likeliness, a colony won't need 2 14x12 Brood bodies.."

use either stacked nucs OR dummied down brood boxes.

...or 14 x 12 nucs?


.

 

[drstitson]

i meant stacked 14x12 nucs.

 

[the naked beekeeper]

"The frames are hella awkward and clumsy to handle IMO. Way too deep. Easier to drop. I get on better with broader frames and shorter lugs."

any thoughts then on jumbo LS? broader still + deep and with short lugs?


"The foundation in my experience is hard to get drawn out properly. I seemed to get holes in the corners more."

why do you need perfect full frames of comb? we're not talking beauty contest - rather a functional hive. you're also unlikely to want to spin your brood frames. bees do what they feel necessary - they like shortcuts between frames.

"It is harder to make splits as in all likeliness, a colony won't need 2 14x12 Brood bodies.."

use either stacked nucs OR dummied down brood boxes.

Jumbo LS is also awful to handle IMO as they are so deep.

If you need me to clarify deep frames, for me, are clumsy to handle.

Whether they are wide and deep, or narrow and deep.

Deep frames!!

I prefer broader and not so deep!

I doubt everyone has nuc boxes with removable floors.
I certainly don't.

Dummied down brood boxes?.....what's to stop the bees building brace in the vain space....and I don't want to bother filling it up with insulation....KISS principle....I wouldn't want to go to extra hassle just to double up if I wanted splits..much better to have slightly shallower broods IMO and manipulate the bodies as a whole...one manipulation, done.

And as it happens, I like most combs to be relatively nice.
If they start putting holes everywhere, you're into hide and seek with the queen.

Plus it seems a waste of a good comb...I'd rather have shorter combs properly drawn out, than deeper combs not properly drawn out.

All my opinions.

You are entitled to yours.

 

[Baggyone]

Everyone who uses 14x12 will think they are brilliant. I use em.

I find the longer lug better than a short one, but then I do not find the large frame as big of an issue as some have mentioned. The biggest advantage is the size of the thing means that the colony is fine within the confines of the brood box and use the supers as honey storage.

Now comes the caveat.

If your bees have a brood nest that does not require a larger brood box than a single national I would'nt bother. Simply not needed.

I have one queen that is presently filling up 12 frames on a 14x12 double brood as its getting bloody scary to lift off!

Baggy

 

[Smith21]

Thanks for all the replies, food for thought as they say. Why o why isn't there one way of doing things in BeeKeeping, I suppose it adds to the fun trying different ways?

 

[oliver90owner]

It's a shame that the beekeeper has been satisfied with choices but there has been little or no consideration for the bees. Things like optimum warmth, shape of brood nest, overwintering, ease (for the bees) of inspections, etc might have been higher on the priority list.

Drawing frames evenly is a good point, but 'completely' is just not worth bothering about. The thinking beek will soon have a few spare drawn frames, and these can be arranged to be drawn at some suitable time when comb-drawing is easy for the bees -like how about when it is warm enough and there is a flow.

As for splits - I use three frame poly nucs, and they all progressed fine last year.

I have had one or two problems with the larger format frames, but now that internet advice is far more readily available, there is no reason for getting it wrong.

 

[Mike a]

I've found when buying queens (some imported) most of them would out lay the national brood chamber and by June/July they were gearing up to swarm. I spent far too much time trying to manage and prevent them from swarming instead of allowing them to do what they want to do with a brood chamber size that suits them.

During a strong flow
My figures may be a little off but 4-5 cells worth of nectar end up after being processed as 1 cells worth of honey so the national chamber isn't big enough to allow them to collect as much nectar as they can and store it in the brood chamber before its moved up into the supers whilst at the same time allowing the queen to continue laying at her normal rate.

 

[REDWOOD]

What ever one you decide your pretty much stuck with your choice as if you need to do an artificial swarm prevention method you need another hive with the same size frames, I started with a normal brood box but soon got overcrowded as prolific queens will so now I have switched to 14x12, they are harder to see the queen if not marked but with a little practice it gets easier. Good luck what ever you decide

 

[itma]

... Why o why isn't there one way of doing things in BeeKeeping...

Two big reasons.
- not all bee colonies are the same
- not all beekeepers are the same

There is no single universal best way or best bit of kit.
Unfortunately!


You might consider growing your nuc to a decent size in your standard National hive before extending the BB to 14x12 with one of the purpose-made ekes. (If you have a poly Nat, getting a 14x12 replacement BB is about the same cost as buying a cedar conversion eke...)
That is if you then think your bees, in your setting, and you, would benefit.
Extending the frames isn't so simple, but getting a bigger colony to draw new (and big) frames is likely a better bet than asking a small colony to do the work.

 

[Joseph]

I used to use 14x12 but found that colony splits and swarm prevention are a real pain unless you have 14x12 nucs and spares. Also, if you ever have to supply a friend with bees, chances are that friend will be starting up with standard equipment and so you will have to start cutting frames etc.

I now use either brood, brood and a half or double brood which seems far more sensible to me. You give you bees the space they need instead of a one size fits all home, which may be too big or too small.

 

[mark s]

They are bl@@dy heavy as i found out this morning moving two too my new apairy,did not realise just how heavy there were and i only had to carry them about 30m,will be using my cart next time
Found quite a diff from standard bb

 

[psafloyd]

I'm going to move one of mine on to 14x12 as a trial this year.

I'm also getting my brother to build me a warré as I like the concept and a source of high quality, untainted wax.

 

[oliver90owner]

untainted wax.

That is a little open to debate. Depends on what you mean exactly.

Many of the cells may have been brooded in before use as storage, but as in 'untainted from cheap imported wax as possibly used in foundation (or even UK sourced wax, maybe)', certainly only the local chemical residues will be present.

If we (framed hive users) made all our own foundation from melted-out super wax each year (as our only 'high quality' material), that might be marginally better than wax from a Warre.

Cappings from framed hives is always regarded as the highest quality; better, presumably, than that from a Warre.

Could be done, but has a large cost to the honey crop. That is one reason why a Warre does not get as large a crop as from framed hives?

Regards, RAB

 

[Poly Hive]

Going back to the OP's question, which to generalise is are bigger hives better than small ones.

My answer is yes they are, but they also have the downside of less flexibility in manipulations and of course greater weight when hive humphing is involved. although if one is using double broods then they still are normally moved as a unit so the weights are comparable.

Using smaller units though arguably makes for easier nuc production, as the "baby" colonies are housed in less room and so are less stressed.

Double broods also have advantages in swarm situations, as there is no real need for extra broods, they are already on hand.

Overall I prefer the double system to one large box.

PH

 

[DanBee]

It should be remembered that the 14x12 is not a "big" brood box. Too many seem to think that by moving to a single 14x12 they'll give their bees all the space they could ever wish for... Think of it as merely an average sized brood box, better than a single National brood box but not as good as two of them