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British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • frame spacing

  • Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
Beginners forum, ask beekeeping related questions and get help from other experienced beekeepers. Please use the Search Feature please to avoid duplicated threads
 #3044  by Alfred
 12 May 2019, 13:52
I have some flat pack supers to make up.
If in the future I set up for taking honey ,is there a preferred spacing for honey frames?
I have a stock of Hoffman's ready to build but in some of the old kit I've inherited the boxes have castlation rails and the frames that they hold has clean honeycomb so deeply drawn that niiether Hoffman clips or white plastic ends will provide any beespace if I reused it.
 #3045  by NigelP
 12 May 2019, 16:05
The bees soon propolise everything down so I don't tend to use castellations...tear your gloves apart. With hoffmans and new foundation I use 11 frames per hive. When drawn I use 10 frames (spaced by eye). The bees will still do weird and wonderful architecture with them :)
Some go down to 9 frames but they are really fat frames when drawn...
 #3046  by Patrick
 12 May 2019, 16:47
Hi Alfred. Folk go for all sorts of formal spacing systems and also plenty of unoffical as well.

If you have Hoffman’s then you can use as is with foundation and they will draw it out fine. Similarly, narrow plastic ends on frames. Once drawn full out you can replace the narrow plastic with wide plastic ends and they will draw out further. This means fewer frames to extract. Don’t try to jump the gun and draw out foundation on wide spacing or you end up with brace comb all over the shop!

With the drawn out frames you already have, you can carefully cut back the excess drawn out comb with a sharp bread or carving knife to a more sensible depth and put your chosen spacer method to good use.
 #3048  by Alfred
 12 May 2019, 19:22
There's lots to get my feeble mind around here.
The honey comb I might be lucky enough to re use is really fat ,on Sn1 frames and came off a castleated super ,so I can carve them down and leave beespace each side,put black Hoffman clips on.
Why do I increase the spacing instaed of putting more frames in?
 #3049  by AdamD
 12 May 2019, 19:28
Increasing the spacing means that you have less to uncap, and you get a little more honey in each super. AND it's cheaper as you have a frame less per box.
 #3053  by Patrick
 12 May 2019, 20:47
It may not seem much difference when only uncapping and extracting a couple of supers when you start out, but it’s surprising later on how after a couple of dozen boxes of fewer frames your heart sinks a little to then tackle a few full 11 frame boxes still being drawn out!