Layens Medium Super Frame

01 · FORMAT

36.5 cm top bar: the standard Layens, not the 36

Two measurements live under the Layens name, and the name does not tell them apart. The standard one has a 36.5 cm top bar; the Castellón, common in the northern Valencian Community and southern Catalonia, has 36 and is sold separately. This is the 36.5, the same top bar as the Layens brood frame of 36.5 × 39.5 cm. What changes is the height: 22 cm instead of 39.5.

02 · THE NOTCH

Two crescents cut into the edge of the top bar

It is not one long rebate: there are two curved scoops in the edge of the top bar, one either side of centre, and there the bar loses a centimetre of width. Two clear passages open between neighbouring frames. You notice it when you set something on the super — feeder, patty, bag of syrup — because the bees come up through those gaps instead of working round the ends. With a straight top bar that shortcut does not exist.

03 · WIRING

Four vertical wires, fitted and slack

It arrives with four vertical wires running from the top bar to the bottom bar, fitted at the factory but not tensioned. Tensioning them before you embed the foundation is bench work and not worth skipping: slack wire lets the comb sag in the heat, and that is what suffers first in the extractor. Foundation is not included; cut it down to shallow-super height.

04 · TIMBER

Bare pine, and it stays that way

It comes in untreated pine and should stay so: frames are not painted or treated. Paints and wood preservers belong on the outside of the hive, never on timber that will touch wax, honey and brood. What makes a frame last is something else: store it dry, safe from wax moth, and renew the comb every few seasons.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The traditional Layens takes no super at all: it is horizontal and a single box, so this frame only makes sense if you already run a shallow super on Layens. Before ordering, check two things on your super: that it seats a 36.5 cm top bar, and that there is room for a frame 22 cm high, because not every Layens shallow super is built to this height. Measure the old frame; the format name is not enough.