Dadant Blatt Queen rearing frame

01 · THE SIZE

Measure the top bar: 47 cm is Blatt, 48 cm is US

Take one of the frames you already run and measure the top bar end to end. If it reads 47 cm, this is yours: it is the standard format across France and Italy. If it reads 48 cm, your kit is Dadant US —the usual one in Spain— and this frame runs short on bearing: it rocks in the rebate and drops when you handle it. The word Dadant on its own does not tell the two sizes apart; the centimetre on the top bar does.

02 · COMPATIBILITY

Smooth bars: whatever system you already own

Both bars are smooth, with no groove and no drilled holes, and that is exactly what makes them compatible: NICOT supports and cup-holder blocks nail or staple straight onto them, JZBZ cups fix to the same face, and a pre-loaded cell bar simply rests in place. Wax cups are stuck down with molten wax. Change system mid-season and the frame still works.

03 · CAPACITY

Up to 15 cup holders per bar

Each bar takes up to 15 NICOT cup-holder blocks; with both fitted, up to 30 cups in the same round. No need to fill it: a batch the colony can feed properly beats a full bar raised only halfway. You graft, hang the frame in the finisher and count the sealed queen cells five or six days later. Acceptance comes from young larvae, nurse bees and feed, not from the frame.

04 · BUILD

The bars come out whole

Each bar seats in a notch cut into the side bar and is held by a wide-headed nail driven through its end grain. Pull the nail and the bar lifts out whole: you graft sitting down, under good light and a damp cloth, and carry only the loaded bar to the apiary. At season’s end they come off for scraping. Under the top bar, a stapled fibreboard strip closes the gap down to the first bar.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It arrives bare: no cups, no cup holders and no wax included; chosen separately, to match the system you work with. And do not mix it up with the SIPA frame in the same Blatt size: that one is stainless steel, with three grooved bars and a 1-litre feeder built in. This is the wooden one, two smooth bars, no feeder.