Jambage® Frame

01 · COMPATIBILITY

47 cm top bar: the French Dadant, not the Spanish one

This is a Dadant Blatt frame, the standard size in France and Italy: 47 × 30 cm overall, with a 47 cm top bar. In Spain the usual one is the Dadant US, at 48 cm. That centimetre decides whether the frame rests on the rebate or hangs from one end, so measure a frame you already own before ordering. With Layens (36.5 × 39.5 cm) or Langstroth there is no fit at all. And it is a body frame: it goes in the brood box, and there is no super or shallow version of this frame.

02 · BUILD

The diagonal batten replaces the wire

The jambage runs from a bottom corner up towards the opposite side bar, stopping a few centimetres below the top bar. It splits the opening into two triangles: the bees start on both sides and meet in the middle, and the batten ends up embedded in the comb as a tie. That is why the frame is neither wired nor tensioned. The design is by Bernard Nicollet, who released it in 2005 after years of testing in his own apiary.

03 · ASSEMBLY

The 1.5 cm wax strip is not optional

With no guide at the top, the colony builds as it pleases and runs comb into the next frame. Fix a wax strip about 1.5 cm deep —some three cells— under the top bar, using hot liquid wax. Wider does not help: it hinders the build. Neither the strip nor the wax comes with the frame.

04 · HIVE HEALTH

One frame only, at the edge of the nest

One per hive, two at most, never side by side: they go at the edges of the brood nest, next to a frame of stores. In the middle of the nest, with a weak colony or cold nights, the brood gets chilled. On free comb the colony devotes a larger share to drone cells than a worker foundation allows, and those wide cells are later reused for pollen and honey. Removing and melting capped drone brood is a supporting biotechnical measure: it adds to the health plan, it does not replace it.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

What arrives is assembled pine: no wax, no wire, no comb. The comb it produces is new, unwired wax: not meant for the extractor nor to stay in the hive season after season, but to be used and melted down. Nor is it a dedicated drone frame: for that there is a specific frame in Dadant Blatt.