What type of frames to go for ?

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ryan_220

New Bee
Joined
May 14, 2009
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Location
Kidderminster Worcestershire
Hive Type
WBC
Number of Hives
2 + nuc
Iam finding my DN4 way too small now. As above 14x12 or Double brood ?
Hive are both WBC, bees are carnis inside the hive and really build up fast two years on the trot so time to change! Nearly bought the 14x12 last week, but thought twice as maybe there is another way of thinking ? From someone been doing it alot longer than me.

What do people think ?

Silly question really, but i like to hear it from others different ways of doing things.
 
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I've got colonies on 3 different frames at the moment - Jumbo Langstroth, Standard Langstroth and Medium Langstroth (or Dadant Shallow).

It is a sort of unscientific trial but my conclusions so far are the all Medium frame colonies are the best for me. The standard Langstroths are not really big enough for my bees so a second brood chamber is often needed. The queen will lay this up but at the end of the summer it is usually getting full of honey rather than brood, which is good for getting them through the winter but a standard depth brood box of honey weighs about 80 pounds or thereabouts.

I don't really like the big Jumbo Langstroth frames but accept this is more a personal thing but on one colony I have the bees tend to form big bunches at the bottom of the frames when I lift them out and this makes finding the queen harder.

Two Medium boxes gives the same volume as a Jumbo Langstroth but with the advantages of having the same sized frames throughout the hive, easy to make increase by splitting them and I haven't found the extra frames make inspections much longer. Being smaller the frames are quicker to inspect and being lighter, easier and quicker to handle. I have also found the double Medium brood chamber also made queen rearing easier.

Another factor is large frames don't fit radially in my extractor but the Mediums do.
 
you could go to double brood - yes harder to manage as more frames to inspect, but no need to change equipment therefore cheaper in the short term.
this would provide enough room for your queen
S
 
None of the responses you get here will be wrong, they will simply reflect that beeks priorities and needs.

I have converted to 14x12, for me best balance of space for brood coupled with minimising frames to inspect. Wld not preclude use of std national for further space if required. Double 14x12 wld be a monster colony though - that wld be a nice problem to have!
 
I'm running 12x14s in WBC hives and I find them ideal. Best of both worlds, with plenty of room and masses of brood. With WBC there's enough of an overhead removing lifts and what-not without going to the bother double brood or brood and a half. Life's too short.

Z
 
None of the responses you get here will be wrong, they will simply reflect that beeks priorities and needs.

I have converted to 14x12, for me best balance of space for brood coupled with minimising frames to inspect. Wld not preclude use of std national for further space if required. Double 14x12 wld be a monster colony though - that wld be a nice problem to have!

/me faints. lotsa bees!:nature-smiley-013:
 
Experimenting with 14x12s this year and so far I quite like them. I've still got one colony building up on standard National Frames and I might double brood them for comparison and see what I get on better with.
 
I have just converted to 12"x14" frames and altered my National hives to accomodate. I wish I had had a better indication/ knowledge regarding what would be the best size of hive for modern bees. Langstroth would have been so much better when I started out but no one seems to want to influence you too much!So far so good although the process was a bit nerve wracking. If I did it again[God forbid I would ever have to] I would just shook swarm them into the new hive set up rather than do it the slow way which was to stack the old and new sizes in such an way to encourage the bees to set up in the newer hive without disturbing them too much-another case of the bees not reading the books as far as that went. I hope with all my changes I get a bit of honey out of it -but you know how ungrateful bees can be!!
 

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