Pros & cons of 14 x12 brood

[AmericasBeekeeper]

I wrote about this some time ago. They are good for searching out land mines also.
It takes two years to train a dog and the handler usually dies with the dog if the charge goes off.
search americasbeekeeper land mines

 

[Hebeegeebee]

My personal view is that the hoffman bit is far too long and gets glued up very easily. The frames are also heavy when full of stores and will break if dropped a very short distance as there is a weak bit at each end. You also have to be more careful when lifting the frame out to keep it vertical or you bash bees as it comes up.

 

[Illo]

 

[Illo]

On a related note, has anyone ever tried shaving some of the length out of the Hoffman spacer to reduce glueing up with propolis?

 

[Hombre]

[HUMOR BREAK]
@AmerricasBeekeeper,

A single colony can generate up to hundreds of thousands of flights every day, each bee returning to the hive with his collection[.

Yup, we heard that the use of drones was on the increase

Instead of bees being a nuisance outside the honey house, they are gathering at the armoury instead

I thought for a moment that you were going to say that the life expectancy of an operational mine detecting beek was a mere six weeks.

Multi floral honey flavoured with C4, P4 and RDX. Mmmmm, an explosive taste sensation.
[/HUMOUR BREAK]

Keeping the bees stretched drawing foundation etc. and supering early is good for slowing them down a bit, but if you have a prolific strain then it might not stop them.

 

[DanBee]

This is my personal favourite choice of management,much faster,and more efficient than single brood chamber management.

I agree, but I held back on the praise for it as I know many are sceptical of it.The irony is that many are far happier to go to brood-and-a-half than to 'proper' double brood.

The question I always have of somebody wishing to move to 14x12 to remedy brood box congestion is: what box do you go to after that if 14x12 is still too small?

What double brood crucially represents is an acceptance that no one brood box is ever going to be the right size for all circumstances, and that by adding or subtracting brood boxes based upon perceived need we can accommodate most (all?) of those circumstances regardless of our choice of hive pattern. The change/development in management techniques that this entails are significant but still less so than this fundamental leap "out of the box".

 

[drstitson]

mike - that's really interesting about the self restriction at 14 (or should that be 13.5?) frames. Presumably you had a super on the whole time that you were trying to force expansion horizontally?

 

[mbc]

IMO 14x12 is a curse :
- theres a greater risk of rolling bees and/or killing the queen when lifting frames ( due to the extra inches of depth)
- bees dont seem to want to draw them properly ( very rarely have I seen 11 or 12 fully drawn 14x12 frames in a box )
- I seem to tire quicker when working them, if I go through any number I get sore wrists and back
- they're too heavy for me to move on my own with a super on.

I agree with Danbee and Hivemaker that multiple brood boxes are easier if nessecary ( though most of my bees keep their nest in one national box )

 

[Mike a]

mike - that's really interesting about the self restriction at 14 (or should that be 13.5?) frames. Presumably you had a super on the whole time that you were trying to force expansion horizontally?

Yep 13.5 frames.
I tried putting two supers on (one on each half of the hive) they went up and partly drew out some of the frames above them but that was about it. I guessed in the end they reached their maximum size and nothing I tried would change that, as it happens the old girl was superseded and the colony size dwindled so much that by the time the new queen started laying I decided to transfer them into a normal 14x12 hive to condense the hive space.

At roughly the same time I was given what I would call a pair of almost breeder queens. They were removed from an association members hives last year as both were so prolific the colonies spent the whole season building queen cells. Carni bought from a well known vendor in Gloucestershire.

He managed to collect this massive swarm Mid-April then asked for help.

(apologies for the picture quality - picture of a picture)

Another friend went round each week to remove queen cells after queen cells from both colonies until it was decided to find and replace them both. It took three of us over 20 minutes per colony to finally find them in the sea of bees and transfer them into nucs.

The original queen (swarm) is now in my Dartington so provided they make it through Winter I will get a chance to see how many frames they naturally expand to. The other queen (Daughter) is currently in a poly langstroth double deep brood hive. Between the pair of them they should to be able to breed more than enough bees for friends to make up packages to take away provided they buy a queen or have a frame of eggs from one of their other colonies for a minimal cost or donation to a charity. (*cough* - or this forum as I know some of them are members here)

 

[drstitson]

"theres a greater risk of rolling bees and/or killing the queen when lifting frames ( due to the extra inches of depth)"

surely not if you have a dummy in so can slide frames back then out?

NOTE: our european colleagues seem to manage fine with deep dadant frames in brood boxes with castellations - so no option but to lift straight up (at least for first cm). Personally i lever up and back with hive tool, catching lugs on castellations then grab lugs.

 

[Skyhook]

Yep 13.5 frames.
At roughly the same time I was given what I would call a pair of almost breeder queens. They were removed from an association members hives last year as both were so prolific the colonies spent the whole season building queen cells. Carni bought from a well known vendor in Gloucestershire.

He managed to collect this massive swarm Mid-April then asked for help.

(apologies for the picture quality - picture of a picture)

What an odd looking swarm! would I be right in thinking the're clustering around half-a-dozen virgins?

 

[Skyhook]

This is my personal favourite choice of management,much faster,and more efficient than single brood chamber management.

You wouldn't care to expand on that? I've read a lot against 2 boxes, what do you find are the advantages?

 

[drstitson]

"I've read a lot against 2 boxes, what do you find are the advantages?"

presumably for the large scale commercial beek the big advantage is that swarming preps can be rapidly assessed by simply splitting boxes open and looking for QCs on bottom of the frames in top box.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

IMO 14x12 is a curse :

- theres a greater risk of rolling bees and/or killing the queen when lifting frames ( due to the extra inches of depth)
As doc says, if you use a dummy board there is no greater risk of rolling
- bees dont seem to want to draw them properly ( very rarely have I seen 11 or 12 fully drawn 14x12 frames in a box )
Only had one season with them ,but no problems to date with drawing the frames out
- they're too heavy for me to move on my own with a super on.
If your circumstances are such that you have to move boxes with supers then I can see its a valid argument, although a double brood and super would be even heavier! If you dont move your bees then its less of an issue
I agree with Danbee and Hivemaker that multiple brood boxes are easier if nessecary ( though most of my bees keep their nest in one national box )
Cannot see the logic in this, especially for the small scale hobbyist

 

[mbc]

As doc says, if you use a dummy board there is no greater risk of rolling
- bees can be rolled between side bars and the brood box walls too and the extra depth gives the beekeeper far less margin of error to play with
Only had one season with them ,but no problems to date with drawing the frames out
- that size foundation tends to sag and bow too if its not cross wired.
Cannot see the logic in this, especially for the small scale hobbyist
-lots of pluses, the aforementioned quick queen cell inspection by splitting and tilting the broods, easy swaps of reasonably sized frames (brood or stores )and also the ability to extract a brood frame gives rise to one of the most usefull tools in beekeeping, an empty drawn brood frame, usefull in so many situations eg. alleviating congestion to delay swarming or rapid build up of nucs.

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Well not convinced me, but each to his own!

 

[For want of a better word]

Well not convinced me, but each to his own!

Mostly I use std National broods... often two.
My later WBCs take std National boxes.
I find the std broods easier to manage... a qe can be slipped betwixt the two boxes overnight for to find her.
(HOODEENIE QUEEN)

I also keep a 14x12 brood box and some frames plus an eke for a nuc just in case of an unexpected delivery!

 

[fiftyjon]

Quote from mbc:

As doc says, if you use a dummy board there is no greater risk of rolling
- bees can be rolled between side bars and the brood box walls too and the extra depth gives the beekeeper far less margin of error to play with
Only had one season with them ,but no problems to date with drawing the frames out
- that size foundation tends to sag and bow too if its not cross wired.
Cannot see the logic in this, especially for the small scale hobbyist
-lots of pluses, the aforementioned quick queen cell inspection by splitting and tilting the broods, easy swaps of reasonably sized frames (brood or stores )and also the ability to extract a brood frame gives rise to one of the most usefull tools in beekeeping, an empty drawn brood frame, usefull in so many situations eg. alleviating congestion to delay swarming or rapid build up of nucs.

I use two deep nationals for brood and have no difficulty with inspections etc. I agree with mbc, DanBee and Hivemaker as to the stated benefits. It also seems to make sense to me to have brood frames the same size. Brood and a half as it is known does seem to complicate things IMHO.

 

[For want of a better word]

Two 14 x 12 brood boxes ?....... book me in at the Osteopath quick!

 

[victor meldrew]

Two 14 x 12 brood boxes ?....... book me in at the Osteopath quick!

You only need lift one so what's the prob?
Watch the German vids, yes they are poly langs but watch the slip of a girl handle full supers and load the pick up truck . she only needed a helping hand inspecting whilst on the rape
VM