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Thread: One size fits all,

  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    Going back to Drone ranger's thoughts on 6 comb boxes, does anyone here use 8 frame units? I'm talking about actual narrow boxes here, not full sized ones closed down by followers -been there and then realized how silly it is not to fill each box with it's maximum quota of frames. Again, this ties in with beejazz's thoughts on vertical movement and general nest configuration, something which I've commented on before(!).
    I could be wrong, but I don't think you can buy 8 frame boxes here, but they use them in the States. Langstroth or Dadant, not National.

    I dummy mine to 9 frames rather than using the full compliment of 10. Dummy board comes out at the beginning on an inspection, the frames get pushed close together as I move across the box and it goes back in at the other side. These are jumbo/Dadant frames.

    I got caught out with the double mediums though because I put the top box's dummy frame in at the opposite side to the lower one and they filled both spaces with comb.

    Does Ian Craig go up to 9 frames for the summer, and back to 8 again in the autumn?

  2. #22
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bumble View Post
    I could be wrong, but I don't think you can buy 8 frame boxes here, but they use them in the States. Langstroth or Dadant, not National.
    I reckon that you're right about the commercial availability of 8 frame boxes -but, the diversity of kit and ideas lurking in out of the way apiaries never ceases to amaze me so...maybe there's someone out there who's already taken a saw to their boxes!

  3. #23

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    Hi Chris
    The French wine that I most love is Pouilly Fuissé fantastic stuff but a bit pricey
    It seems that a Warre style hive with frames should tick most of the boxes ?
    I think Ian Craig moves to double brood after Winter but I'm not sure
    He may be along to tell us if he reads the forum
    Last edited by The Drone Ranger; 20-07-2013 at 10:10 PM.

  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mellifera Crofter View Post
    About brood and a half - it keeps happening to me as well, but I recently read an article somewhere of somebody who uses brood and a half as his preferred option. What he does is to keep them on brood and a half over winter and then towards May add a queen excluder underneath the super to allow the brood to hatch and the frames to fill with honey. He adds his honey frames above that original brood super. Towards the end of the season he harvests the honey supers, remove the queen excluder, and leaves the original brood super, now filled with honey, for the bees as winter food.

    If I get a hive with brood and a half again, it won't bother me any more. I certainly won't try and correct the situation again by moving super frames into the brood box - that is a nightmare.

    Kitta

    PS: but take care of the drones ...
    Thanks for the link, so much to read! I have gotten used to brood and a half now, but I have a tendency to somehow mix up the brood supers, usually when AS. I will have to get some coloured chalk and mark the boxes. About putting the Q exc on around May, that effectively returns the hive to a single brood, just when my supposedly prolific bees are getting going!
    I have been toying with the idea of keeping bees without a Q exc, and think it would be easier if the boxes were all one size.
    I am very kind to drones, the silly things, especially when demareeing, I lift up the crownboard every couple of days in the afternoon to let them out, what a noise they make!

  5. #25
    Senior Member Mellifera Crofter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by beejazz View Post
    ... I have been toying with the idea of keeping bees without a Q exc, and think it would be easier if the boxes were all one size.
    I am very kind to drones, ... I lift up the crownboard every couple of days in the afternoon to let them out, what a noise they make!
    Yes, I don't like queen excluders either. I've watched even the workers struggling to get through. I have three Langstroth medium hives (that I'm trying to get rid of - as I said earlier, I think they're too wide), but being one size, they are easier to manage without queen excluders. If the queen has used a frame or two in a box too high, I can see if I can move those frames down so that she has a box of honey above her head.

    Sometimes queen excluders are necessary. I'm now going to make plywood queen excluders as described by David Cushman. I thought they might also allow the drones a way out (well, I hope they're clever enough to find the holes around the edges).

    Kitta

  6. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    I think Ian Craig moves to double brood after Winter but I'm not sure
    Completely wrong He winters the bees on double brood 16 frames 8top 8 bottom

    Ian says In his "Beekeeping Year" http://www.scottishbeekeepers.org.uk...ing%20Year.pdf

    " In Summer the use of a large brood chamber, or double National or Smith brood boxes, will give an excellent honey crop in a good season but little or no honey in a middling or poor season. All you will do then is rear large numbers of bees which will spend most of their time in brood rearing and store any honey they gather in the brood chamber."

    I see from the forum there is a movement to larger brood boxes
    Ian was writing in 2007
    I can see his point do larger boxes have any advantages ?

  7. #27
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    I see from the forum there is a movement to larger brood boxes
    Ian was writing in 2007
    I can see his point do larger boxes have any advantages ?
    Possibly.... by allowing the colony to set up it's brood nest as it wants to, rather than forcing '1 shape fits all' on them. Ask me again in four or five years and I may have different thoughts on the subject...

  8. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    Possibly.... by allowing the colony to set up it's brood nest as it wants to, rather than forcing '1 shape fits all' on them. Ask me again in four or five years and I may have different thoughts on the subject...
    Will do

    Possibly spacers at the side giving fewer but bigger frames might be the best compromise ?

  9. #29
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    Will do
    Looking forward to answering, but don't expect too much science!

    Quote Originally Posted by The Drone Ranger View Post
    Possibly spacers at the side giving fewer but bigger frames might be the best compromise ?
    Ha! I've discussed this very thing here before (on the brood and half thread which I started, I think) but as I wrote earlier in this thread, I've shifted away from the spacer/follower idea on the basis that I might as well fill the space with pollen and honey, not wood or poly. The key here is, I reckon, giving them the choice to go 'up' if that's what they want to do; it's no matter how many combs are in the brood chamber so long as they're not (overly) restricted in the vertical plain. Obviously there are management issues but I've got to say that as yet I'm not really seeing queens wandering to the top of the hives without excluders.
    Last edited by prakel; 28-07-2013 at 10:44 AM.

  10. #30

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    It will be the Glenn hive for you next then

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