Hive Types and Frame Sizes
Romanian beekeepers use mostly two types of hives: what are here called horizontal hives (long hives), and then vertical hives. Books also mention multi-level hives, which is what Langstroth hives are, but they are not very popular here. The main difference between multi-level and vertical is that the latter doesn’t have a separate, removable bottom board, there’s a complete box at the bottom. As a result, you have your brood in that box, and you can’t switch brood boxes up and down.
Hives use variations of Dadant frames. What here is called a “1/1 frame” is 415 mm (16 ¼") long and 280 mm (11") deep. Honey supers for vertical hives either use “3/4 frames”, which have their depth reduced 3/4 to 210 mm (8 ¼"), or “1/2 frames”, with a depth of 140 mm (5 ½"). So Romanian mediums are comparable Langstroth deeps and shallows are like Langstroth mediums, but they are 1 cm shorter, which makes it hard to adapt from a frame type to another.
Long hives usually hold between 14 and 24 frames, 20 being the most popular configuration. It is also quite common to find long hives with two 10 frame compartments with separate entrances, used to start with two nucs in a single box. Vertical hives have either 10 or 12 frames, and queen excluders are made for these sizes.