I am receiving my new colony tomorrow, but while most of the world uses Langstroth frames, we have a multitude of frame formats here in Germany. Most seem to use “Deutsch Normalmaß” (German Standard Format), but more people seem to switch to Zander or Dadant frames these days. I’ve also seen all kinds of modified variants and one I call “Frankenstein” format which is a mix between the former two called “Zadant”.
I only have one Langstroth keeper in my area, but he doesn’t have colonies to sell this year, so I am getting my bees from someone that uses Zander frames with longer ears. They are a little smaller in height and width, but their ears are long enough to fit into my Honeyflow boxes.
Of course I’d love to move them over to Langstroth, but I am not sure what the best method is to do so. My three ideas are:
Replace every other frame with Langstroth, but that would mean removing food and precious brood while the bees are building up numbers after the winter. This would also mean to replace the rest of the frames over the year and waste ressources.
Add a second brood box with Langstroth frames on top, wait for them to build it up and start using it and once I catch the queen in the upper area, use a queen excluder to stop her from going into the “wrong frame” box to lay eggs. After 30 days or so the Zander box should then only have food left. I am not sure what to do with it after though. Keep it in the hive, but swap the two boxes (LS brood frames down, Zander food frames up)? Replace it with the Honeyflow frames during mid-year harvest?
Wait for the colony to be strong enough for a split and do half/half (see 1) in each. (I’d have to order a new HF hive and wait for queens to be available though and find extra space.)
you could alway step by step cut out comb and put it in the langstroth frames, dont do it all at once as it is too high a risk. (The longer comb is in the sun the easier it starts to break apart and honey attracts other bees and then you might end up with the bees being overworked in rebuilding that they get robbed.)
2)The method of checkerboarding might be good, often used to cycle out old frames. I wouldn’t do it all at once again, But add the Langstroth brood box then swap out say 2 brood frames from the bottom box and move them up to the top with empty frames put in there place in the bottom box. Alternate the frames so there is an empty one between two worked frames. It depends on the strength of the colony, you dont want to do this with a colony that doesnt have the bee population to support 2 brood boxes. Then once the two old frame moved up to the top have hatched and the bees have used the resources to build new comb in the empty frames below, remove them entirely.
Id probably forgo this unless you are actively splitting to prevent a swarm, and go with the option 2 when the colony is stronger.
It is a hard one to predict as you need to have the colony to know for sure what will work for them. You may find that you are able to cycle out old frames naturally as part of the colony establishing the single brood box too. As the bees build out new frames, assess whether any old frames came be removed, Usually edge frames will have honey stores predominantly, so these can be the first to go, then the bees make another of the edge frames for honey stores and repeat removing old frames over time until the bees are all in new frames. If you dont want to take their resources, you might consider feeding the honey back to the bees, crushing the removed comb straining what you can and then using a DIY feeder.
I had thought about cutting out the combs as you suggested in 1, but with the frames being wired, it’s always a hassle and destroys more than you get out. While I do have empty frames, most of my new Langstroth frames also have wax foundation (I got “scolded” last year for using “drone frames” by other beekeepers, because it boosts the Varroa population).
Your suggestion 2 sounds like a mix between my ideas of checkerboarding and just adding a 2nd empty brood box. But both have the extra work to maintain two brood boxes - for both me and the bees.
Repeatedly cycling a single food frame (or two?) in one brood box by adding a new frame in the center and feeding the comb from the removed frame back to the bees sounds interesting. I could even laser cut a “feeder box” that is small enough to offer some old comb, but not be interesting enough as build volume… hm.
I don’t think I need to adapt the frames like they did in the thread. The dimensions aren’t that far off.
Zander
Langstroth
Honeyflow
top bar
477
482
483
width
420
448
450
height
220
232
232
The top bar is 2.5 mm shorter on each side. It’s close, but they won’t fall down even when pushed completely to one side.
14 mm extra space on each side might result in some crazy comb, but I have an idea for that, especially since his frames don’t have Hoffmann sides.
I’m not sure if I have to do something about the 12 mm on the bottom.
Either way, I think the best way to rotate the frames is to remove food frames from the sides, add new ones in the center and return the food back to the bees in some form.
Today I thought I could just replace a flow frame with those as long as I keep the windows closed, but that might just result in them not touching it for quite a while since it’s stored in the way it’s supposed to.
Instead I might try and offer it in a flat laying box on top of the inner cover. I am not sure about the height of the box yet, but I guess I’ll just have it around 20 mm.
Do you think that might trick them into wanting to clean up and store the food the proper way?
Winnie-the-Pooh would tell you that bees are tricky things. In my personal experience (not Winnie’s), you can’t reliably trick them. Just try something, and if it works for you, woohoo!
To answer your specific question, they may build crazy comb, but it should be workable with a 12mm gap at the bottom. You may need a really good J-hook tool to lift those frames out though. Plus don’t weep about the broken comb, lost honey etc when you lift them. Bees are livestock, not pets, as you well know. Sometimes you have to destroy bee-built structures for the good of the colony. They might not understand, but your colony will thrive if you do understand
