Commercial to National Hive

[SteveG]

Morning, I've been given some commercial hives, good BIAS in brood box and super with stores. All my hives and equipment are national. HELP - Suggestions please on best way to move to nationals?? or best to purchase some commercial supers, frames and wax and keep it simple. Thanks

 

[Ian123]

Simply put national brood chamber above and let them move up. You can speed up by simply putting queen excluder and trapping queen in the national box, you’d normally do this once they are at least established in the new box. Commercial and nats are the same footprints so boxes are interchangeable.

 

[Wilco]

Same footprint so just put national supers on top.

To move the bees across at this time as long as no swarm preps, I'd be tempted to just put a national deep (brood) box on the bottom with drawn frames, put the queen there and do a Demarree with the existing commercial on the very top. Kills two birds with one stone.

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

We use both commercial and 14x12 hives.
I populate the commercial by placing the box under the national until there is brood present on the commercial frames, then demeree ensuring the queen is in bottom box.
Very often I may also just put the national on another floor and re-queen the Colonie in a week or so.
I do very similar with nucs, using a commercial brood extension on poly nucs, then split onto a fresh floor & introduce queen into whichever needs one.
It's one of the major advantages of masie nuc box's.

 

[nantmoel]

Personally I would stick with Commercial BB and national supers, a standard national BB is not big enough for a prolific queen. Best of both worlds.

 

[WoodenBeam]

Just check top v bottom bee space on your existing kit v commercial stuff. As long as it’s the same then just run commercial brood’s with everything else National.

 

[Hull Bees]

national. HELP - Suggestions please on best way to move to nationals?? or best to purchase some commercial supers, frames and wax and keep it simple. Thanks

Just put national supers on your commercial brood boxes.

I've used commercial brood boxes and national supers for years and any floors, roofs, frame queen excluders I've bought have been National too. There's only 5mm difference in the footprint, so 2.5mm on each side which is probably within the tolerances of some equipment manufactures and certainly self builders.

I found the tiny handholds on commercial supers (and brood boxes) make them more awkward to lift and lug about than nationals with their rebated sides. I've actually attached batons to my commercial brood boxes to make handles to make them easier to lift too.

 

[SteveG]

Personally I would stick with Commercial BB and national supers, a standard national BB is not big enough for a prolific queen. Best of both worlds.

Good idea, thank you. Hate 14x12, short arms. with most of my hives brood and half could be the perfect solution over time