hoffman and plastic spacing

[adrian wilford]

can anyone give me a clue to why plastic ends are always wider than hoffman frame spacing?
thanks

 

[richardbees]

Assuming you're talking about the standard size plastic ends, they aren't. However, the 'sharp' side of the Hoffman frame is soft wood and quickly wears away.

 

[oliver90owner]

Well I can give you a clue as to why hoffmans are narrower than spacers - you can get an extra frame in!

Now why Hoffmans are narrower is not something I have bothered about. Maybe they were fitted at that spacing from another type of box? Marketing ploy to get them selling/adopted? Optimum spacing for the bees of the time? One of these 'metric' conversions?

Some Hoffmans are tighter than others, anyway (I have noticed).

They certainly start smaller as twelve will fit and eleven would not even touch or the bees would build an extra bit of comb. Maybe they were designed to only fit eleven and a dummy?

Well, there's something to get started with. Please let us all know when you find the answer.

RAB

 

[adrian wilford]

will do

 

[Hivemaker.]

can anyone give me a clue to why plastic ends are always wider than hoffman frame spacing?
thanks

The plastic/metal narrow spacers were the original brood spacing for BS national and WBC hives,not hoffman. The narrow plastic/metal ends are inch and seven sixteenths,the normal hoffman ones usually supplied are inch and three eighths,but the slightly wider hoffman ones can also be obtained.

 

[oliver90owner]

Nellie may be along. He reported his findings on the dark side a couple or three years ago. Seems to be a likely reason, but not sure if it is substantiated or simply suspected as the reason.

 

[Drinkstone]

Well I also wonder why castellated spacers can hold eight frames which leaves a far greater gap! They also seem to create a slight gap between the boxes! More and more to learn

 

[Hivemaker.]

Well I also wonder why castellated spacers can hold eight frames which leaves a far greater gap! They also seem to create a slight gap between the boxes! More and more to learn

For supers,to get thicker combs.


1889 The Hoffman Frame Spacing method was invented. The first reported use was in New York USA during 1890.

Metal ends, which slide onto the lugs of National or WBC frame top bars were introduced by WBC in 1890.

 

[Tom Bick]

I have often considered this difference and I can only offer is that with the relatively long contact with the Hoffman frames Propolis becomes more of an issue and soon widens the frames as we all know. So perhaps this has been taken into account?

With the narrow plastic ends the propalis seems not as big a problem and if so reasonably easy to remove (said me with only experience with one hive with brood frames on plastic ends)

 

[Hivemaker.]

I have often considered this difference and I can only offer is that with the relatively long contact with the Hoffman frames Propolis becomes more of an issue and soon widens the frames as we all know. So perhaps this has been taken into account?

I don't think propolis has been taken into account Tom,as you can get hoffman side bars with the same spacing as the plastic/metal ends and even wider for other hives. Narrower spacing does not reduce drone either as far as i can see.

 

[nonstandard]

I have never calculated up the dimensions but always understood that hoffman widths were built to suit the Langstroth and were adapted in length for use on British hives; while BS frames and spacings were obviously made to fit the National and WBC.

 

[Nellie]

Nellie may be along. He reported his findings on the dark side a couple or three years ago. Seems to be a likely reason, but not sure if it is substantiated or simply suspected as the reason.

Not sure which post you mean, but I'm afraid I have little in the way of interesting findings, I fear . I think we had a bit of a discussion on the Scottish site (Macbeth!) around the spacing difference

Standard hoffman spacing between frames is, I believe, 35mm. With plastic/metal Spacers you get, as standard 38mm spacing.

I understand that the reasoning behind the slightly narrower spacing with the Hoffman frames is to try and discourage the bees from raising drone brood. I've not personally noticed any problems with them raising drones on Hoffman frames, with or without foundation but as far as I can see the line of reasoning is that drone brood is slightly bigger and longer than worker brood, standard spacing between frames is 38mm so if you make that spacing a few mm narrower they won't have the space to raise drones from days of yore where drones were seen as a bad thing and nicking your honey. I've no links to any paper or quote to back that up so it may simply be another bit of beekeeping folklore and perhaps it was simply to squeeze another frame into the brood box?

In theory you can get hoffman frames using 38mm spacing, in practice I've never found anyone who actually sells them.

Nationals I believe are designed for 11 frames at 38mm (why 11 I've no idea), so by dropping the spacing to 35mm you can squeeze in 12 frames, I prefer to use 11 and a dummy board.

 

[DanBee]

I understand that the reasoning behind the slightly narrower spacing with the Hoffman frames is to try and discourage the bees from raising drone brood. I've not personally noticed any problems with them raising drones on Hoffman frames, with or without foundation but as far as I can see the line of reasoning is that drone brood is slightly bigger and longer than worker brood, standard spacing between frames is 38mm so if you make that spacing a few mm narrower they won't have the space to raise drones from days of yore where drones were seen as a bad thing and nicking your honey. I've no links to any paper or quote to back that up so it may simply be another bit of beekeeping folklore and perhaps it was simply to squeeze another frame into the brood box?

It's an interesting explanation and I can understand the logic, but in practice Hoffmans are no obstacle to brood raising. We use starter strips in ours for drone comb removal as required during the active season, and they soon draw/fill with drone if that's what they want.

Nationals I believe are designed for 11 frames at 38mm (why 11 I've no idea), so by dropping the spacing to 35mm you can squeeze in 12 frames, I prefer to use 11 and a dummy board.

I'm no expert on the history, but in practical terms the National took the BS frame and the rectangular WBC inner box, added a frame and a dummy board, and became a square box. Thus having a square box and an extra frame are two advantages.

I seem to have a vague memory that the metal endspacers (which begat the plastic ones) came about because you could arrange them to make the WBC inners beetight, rather than having bees leak out around the lug ends...

Remember too that we think of 5/16" as beespace, but beespace is a range of measurements, further obfuscated by the ranges of physical sizes of Apis mellifera sub-species, which gives rise to umpteen 'correct' permutations

 

[Nellie]

It's an interesting explanation and I can understand the logic, but in practice Hoffmans are no obstacle to brood raising. We use starter strips in ours for drone comb removal as required during the active season, and they soon draw/fill with drone if that's what they want.

No argument from me on that front. I've used frames both with foundation and without and they seem happy to raise brood in both. I was going to put a frame on 38mm spacing and see if there was any noticeable difference this year but for obvious reasons I've not done a great deal so far this year.

I have tried to track down a definitive explanation for why hoffman frames are on that spacing and the drone brood explanation seems to be the most common understanding but it's largely verbal hand-me-downs from various people. I'd have accepted "so we can get 12 frames in a national" as a reasonable one too, but that never really comes up.

I'm no expert on the history, but in practical terms the National took the BS frame and the rectangular WBC inner box, added a frame and a dummy board, and became a square box. Thus having a square box and an extra frame are two advantages.

I seem to have a vague memory that the metal endspacers (which begat the plastic ones) came about because you could arrange them to make the WBC inners beetight, rather than having bees leak out around the lug ends...

Remember too that we think of 5/16" as beespace, but beespace is a range of measurements, further obfuscated by the ranges of physical sizes of Apis mellifera sub-species, which gives rise to umpteen 'correct' permutations

I'm vaguely aware that the national frame was designed before the hives that accepted it so whether the National is simply an evolution of the old WBC box taking 10 frames and that being considered not enough I've no idea.

Agree that bee space is far more "fluid" than we generally consider and certainly what most books (and courses for that matter) claim. Do think that at a basic level people should think in terms of Beespaces rather than a beespace.

 

[MuswellMetro]

I thought the reason why 35mm is the hoffman standard is that the frame is a direct conversion from the hoffman langstroth frame

I understood that BS National Hoffman frames were originally made on the same machine. (The 35mm size being determined as 10 langstroth frames fitted in a langstroth box)

The 35mm langstroth blanks as in europe were then cut to BS national depth by EH Taylor of welwyn

i have a few 33mm and have seen 37 or 38mm but don't think commonly available now

 

[Nellie]

Muswell, that's a good an explanation as any I feel. If 35mm was what it took to fit enough frames in a Langstroth which is designed, famously, around a champagne crate rather than with any consideration for the bees in mind then I'd happily accept that as well.

I'm certainly not putting forward "To stop drones being raised" as fact, it's simply the most common explanation that I get given. I think as Dan points out, Beespace(s) are actually fairly fluid rather than set in stone at whatever figure you happen to think they are at any given point in time.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Muswell, that's a good an explanation as any I feel. If 35mm was what it took to fit enough frames in a Langstroth which is designed, famously, around a champagne crate rather than with any consideration for the bees in mind then I'd happily accept that as well.

I'm certainly not putting forward "To stop drones being raised" as fact, it's simply the most common explanation that I get given. I think as Dan points out, Beespace(s) are actually fairly fluid rather than set in stone at whatever figure you happen to think they are at any given point in time.

just talked to a friend ,who is on here, he says it was a german hive not the langstroth......oh well, got it wrong ( maybe)

but the use of imported blanks cut down was something i heard in 1966!!!!!!!

 

[DanBee]

No argument from me on that front. I've used frames both with foundation and without and they seem happy to raise brood in both. I was going to put a frame on 38mm spacing and see if there was any noticeable difference this year but for obvious reasons I've not done a great deal so far this year.

I have tried to track down a definitive explanation for why hoffman frames are on that spacing and the drone brood explanation seems to be the most common understanding but it's largely verbal hand-me-downs from various people.

Nellie - my apologies for the typo, I meant to write "Hoffmans are no obstacle to drone brood raising" earlier, but I generally agree with your logic because it sounds like the sort of thing a committee* of beekeepers would decide!

Agree that bee space is far more "fluid" than we generally consider and certainly what most books (and courses for that matter) claim. Do think that at a basic level people should think in terms of Beespaces rather than a beespace.

No, I think we do too much confusing of newcomers with all the combinations and permutations, I think "about" 5/16" or "about" 7-8mm is good enough. The idea that it is a "corridor" that is respected by the bees is plausible, mostly correct, and most importantly helps somebody to get their head around it in both horizontal and vertical planes.

Discovering that beespace itself can be flexible (rather than one manufacturer's interpretation of it!) and hence staring into the yawning abyss beyond will just be one more step along the road to realising that the only correct answer to any beekeeping question is "Well, it depends." Well, that and the bit about brood and a half

----

* Mindful that the collective noun for a group of apiarists is a disagreement of beekeepers

 

[Nellie]

Same omission from me, also meant drone brood

We've tended to try and keep it simple around beespace too. In some respects I think getting the concept of what beespace is at that point is far more important than knowing it's a flexible number of mm.