Commercial to National 14x12

[spiderplantman]

Afternoon all,

I have come into possession of a commercial nuc of bees. However, all my hives (and spares) are nationals, with 14x12 brood boxes. I understand that with a standard national brood box I can get a Hamilton converter to take the Commercial frames from the nuc (when it's time to upgrade them out of the nuc) and put them into the national, and then use normal national supers on top. However, does having 14x12 brood boxes mess this up?

Presumably there will be a gap at the bottom where the commercial frames are too short. I presume the bees will just add comb on the bottom, which isn't too much of a problem. Is that the only issue though?

I was thinking of starting them off in the nationals and then in spring next year bailey comb changing them up and out into 14x12s, then making the commercial frames redundant. I don't really want to have to keep commercial kit and have to purchase consumables (e.g. frames etc) for it in future.

 

[Boston Bees]

Your plan sounds fine.

If you have a standard national box I would use that, rather than a 14x12, as otherwise you could get some crazy comb build under the frames. Then Bailey change next spring into 14x12, as you say.

 

[spiderplantman]

Yea, that’s kind of why I’m asking. I have 14x12 boxes, but no standard brood, so if it was going to be really problematic I’d put in an order for a standard. However, I can manage a bit of extra comb until next spring, so I’ll just use the 14x12 box I have.
Thanks for letting me know though, appreciate it.

 

[oliver90owner]

What is stopping you blocking off access to the bottom of the 14 x12 box? I used to put deep frames at the back of a 14x 12 box and extra deep frames at the front, changing them out as and when.

Any deep box can be converted to 14 x12 quite easily with an eke added under.. Most of my 14 x 12 boxes were Thorne deep seconds - much cheaper and more available than 14 x 12 seconds!

A nuc, at this time of year, will likely not need supers this year. A 14 x12 IS a British Standard National box (shallow, deep and extra deep - the extra deep also being called a jumbo or 14 x12).

 

[spiderplantman]

What is stopping you blocking off access to the bottom of the 14 x12 box?

Well that's a very good question, I hadn't considered that.

I could add a bit of wood on top of the floor to prevent bottom-comb builddown off the bottom of the frames. Only disadvantage would be blocking off the OMF, unless I got clever with the construction of something similarly ventilated, but stepped up to meet the bottom of the commercial frame.

 

[Markthebuilder]

I cant believe I hadn’t thought of putting a block of wood under bs national brood frames when useing them in a 14x12…. That said my bees tend to only build drone comb on the bottom of the deep frame. Which seems so natural that recently deliberately fitted brood foundation to 14x 12 frames