Number of frames for the brood box

Make sure you get a good one Tony. And be careful not to crush bees.

I use thin gloves or bare hands these days so I can feel any bees under my fingers. Not for the faint hearted

Yes Iā€™m very careful with that tool. My gloves are kidskin and easy to feel enough. Itā€™s my fingers themselves that are thick and when I loosen frames they are a little hard for me to get a good grip with my fingers gloves on or not and I find it is easier for me to squish a bee with my fingers than use the puller. While using the puller I can use my free hand fingertip to really help balance the frame and no bees die in the process. Sometimes itā€™s also the arthritis that makes fingers hard to manipulate as well

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Yes the arthritis is a witch! Getting old is pants!

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yep, called a Frame Grip

I MUCH prefer the cast ones:
http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/Frame-Grip/productinfo/764/

They donā€™t tear up the frames and are easier to grip. But to be honest I own several and havenā€™t touched one in yearsā€¦

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@Michael_Bush those look much more sturdy - I bought the one Tony mentioned - it fell apart as soon as I took the wrapping off it. Used it once but never really trusted it - I use bare hands now - I find it easier as I have arthritis and I need to feel what Iā€™m doing

I found I was able to squeeze 9 of my frames in the Flow brood box but not 9 of the frames sent out with the Flow hive. I tried to insert a 9th frame to secure the 8 Flow frames while traveling but found I had to make wedges to tighten things up. Once the Flow owner gets his bees settled, heā€™s going to space the frames evenly. The evenly spaced frames look good in my books.

Hiya Jeff, forgive my naivety but ideally are the frames supposed to butt up against each other or should there be a space between them?

@skeggley
Skeg this is often debate. If you go back in history, Langstroth really put this one to bed - Bee space

Hi Greg, I like to use 9 frames in a ten frame box with the frames evenly spaced. Others use 10. If you space the 8 frames evenly in the flow brood super, youā€™ll get the same spacing I get with using 9 frames in a 10 frame box. The frames butted up tight with each other is similar to the natural spacing the bees do in the wild. For me: I just like to space them out evenly to make it easier to take the first frame out, thus reducing the risk of killing the queen. My bees are doing great & building nice & strong with the 9 frames evenly spaced. Iā€™m in a sub-tropical zone, that works well here. People in colder climates might be advised to use tighter packed frames than I do.

It also stops you rolling or squashing bees if you move the hive - NEVER move a hive with spaces you endanger the Queen and the hive - this is why people put the correct number of frames or in UK people use dummy boards to take out to give the space needed to move frames around - I always take out the first frame, inspect it and put it near the top of the hive leaning on the next one - some people use frame holders.

But never, never never move a hive with space in it! Canā€™t stress that enough

Butted up against each other. Better yet, shave them down by 3mm (1/8") and butt those up against each other. That would be proper beespace in the brood nest. If you space them out they may build comb between the frames because it is excess space for a brood comb.

Beekeeping Frequently Asked Questions, Beekeeping, FAQs, Michael Bush (plus read the next paragraph on ā€œWhy do the bees mess up the combs?ā€
Beekeeping with narrow frames and the effect on cell size, Michael Bush

Hi Michael, in nearly 28 years of using 9 frames in a 10 frame brood box, Iā€™ve never had bees build comb between the frames. The operative words being ā€œevenly spacedā€. Iā€™ve seen other peoples hives with ā€œUnevenly Spacedā€ 9 frames in a 10 frame hive with comb between the frames. But it never happens when the frames are ā€œEvenly Spacedā€. Some people like 9 frames in a 10 frame box, I happen to be one of those. Others prefer 10 frames in a 10 frame box. Itā€™s all a matter of personal preference.

They sell 9 frame spacing guides on the beekeeping suppliers. So there must be quite a few people doing it to warrant a whole piece of equipment being produced to support the practice. Doing a quick search it seems that itā€™s mainly a technique for honey supers. I didnā€™t see much discussion of use in the brood chamber. The idea being that the bees draw out deeper cells for the honey and actually give more room for honey then if you had 10 frames in it. Not sure how true it is but here is a source that claims it is.
http://www.beebehavior.com/frame_spacing_tool.php

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Hi Adam, the advantage of 9 frames in the 10 frame honey super is: most of the frames are capped above the top & bottom bar making it easier to uncap the frames before extracting the honey. The 9 frames in my brood boxes is my personal preference. I donā€™t have any scientific data except Iā€™ll put a video on here of our last mid winter split. We clearly have 9 frames in a 10 frame super. cheers


A purist may say ā€œthatā€™s not a splitā€, however if I didnā€™t do something quick, that hive would have definitely swarmed. What did I do?, I stopped a strong hive from swarming. I boosted to populations of 2 weaker hives. All 3 hives have produced lots of honey & are still going strong.

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A recognised way of swarm prevention, Jeff
A lot of commercial beekeepers keep brood colonies which are used purely to strengthen production ones, particularly when getting bees bursting at the seams when they take them to the heather.
I had to laugh at your ā€œwinterā€
Hereā€™s one of mine

, and I see what you mean about bees hanging about the top.

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Thank you Dee, I can just imagine, looks like your bees are nice & snug. I wouldnā€™t mind a bit longer winter here. Basically as soon as we pass the shortest day (towards the end of June) & the days start getting longer, I have to start thinking about swarm control, or at least start getting things ready for it.

And Iā€™ve seen it probably a hundred times in the last 41 yearsā€¦ more often when itā€™s either plastic foundation or DuraComb foundation. But often enough. Always when itā€™s new foundation of course, but that is exactly the position that any new beekeeper is in when the ask the question. The other problem with wider spacing is that they bees build the honey out further than the brood and the faces are uneven making it much harder to get that first comb out and harder to get them back in if you get them out of order as the facing comb often is uneven as well but in different places.

Here is Harbisonā€™s description of that effect: ā€œā€¦when the combs are too widely spaced, the bees while refilling them with stores, lengthen the cells and thus make the comb thick and irregularā€“the application of the knife is then the only remedy to reduce them to proper thickness.ā€ā€“J.S. Harbison, The bee-keeperā€™s directory pg 32

After reading some of Dadantā€™s writings I tried 9 frames in a ten frame box and was very disappointed in the results. This is all from only the view of getting the comb drawn so that the combs are flat and even. Then there is the issue of keeping the brood warmā€¦

ā€œIf we space the combs from center to center 1 1/2 (38mm) inches, instead of 1 3/8 (32mm), then we have an empty space of 5/8 inch (16mm) between two combs of brood instead of 1/2 (13mm), as it ought to be; and it will certainly require more bees to fill and keep warm a 5/8 (16mm) than a 1/2 inch (13mm) space. In a 1/2 inch (13mm) space, the breeding bees from two combs facing each other will join with their backs, and so close up the space between the two brood combs. If this space is widened to 5/8 (16mm) the bees cannot do this, and more bees will be required to keep up the needed brood-rearing temperature. What a drawback this would be in a cool spring, when our colonies are still weak in numbers, yet breeding most desirable, can readily be understood.ā€ā€“Julius Hoffman

That is for spacing them in the supers. You can put as few as eight DRAWN combs in a super evenly spaced and the bees will draw them out really fat making them very easy to uncap. Spacing in honey areas of a natural hive are typically 1 1/2" (38mm) but can be as much as 2" or even 2 1/2". They are not a fixed depth like brood comb is. Brood comb is the right depth for the brood to develop. Honey is whatever fits the space. The problem with spacing foundation in the supers that wide is that they will usually ignore the foundation and draw their own combs between. But drawn comb will almost always be made deeper to fit the space.