APIBOX plastic boxes

01 · COMB HONEY

Bees draw straight onto the embossed base, no foundation

The base of each cassette is embossed with the hexagonal cell pattern, and that imprint guides the colony: no wax foundation goes in. Given a strong colony and a proper flow — clover, lime blossom, heather — the bees draw comb directly onto the plastic; without a strong colony there is no comb honey. If the colony is only average, a very thin coat of liquid wax improves acceptance.

02 · COMPATIBILITY

They sit in the APIBOX frame, not in an ordinary one

The cassettes are held by the pre-cut APIBOX frame and nowhere else: a standard Langstroth or Dadant frame neither grips them nor separates them. The hive is another matter, because the APIBOX frame does hang in one. The MINI is 12 cassettes in a shallow super frame with a 48 cm top bar (Langstroth or Dadant US); the MIDI, 16 in a shallow super frame with a 47 cm top bar (Dadant Blatt); the MAXI, 24 in a full-depth frame with a 48 cm top bar.

03 · THE CASSETTE

MINI and MAXI share one cassette; the MIDI uses another

They arrive in pre-cut sheets, each cassette with its lid: once the comb is capped you push and the cassette breaks away whole along its cut line. The lid domes over the cappings and does not crush the comb. The plastic is not the same across the three: MINI and MAXI share a cassette, in rows of 6, while the MIDI uses a different one, in rows of 8. So packs do not swap between models. Cassette and lid are PET, which the manufacturer declares suitable for food contact.

04 · AFTER THE HARVEST

Close it, freeze it, put it on the counter

No extracting, no uncapping, no jars to fill: you pull the cassette, close it and label it. Before storing, a spell in the freezer at -15 °C for around two hours — checking the whole mass really reaches that temperature — breaks the wax moth cycle, which can ruin a comb in a matter of days.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is the plastic refill only: it does not include the APIBOX wooden frame, bought once and reused. Check which model you own before ordering, because MINI, MIDI and MAXI are not interchangeable: a pack of 16 will neither fill a 24-cassette frame nor fit a 12-cassette one.