Dadant Blatt Super with 9 frames hoffman

01 · THE SIZE

Blatt, 47 cm: check the top bar of your frames

Dadant Blatt is the standard in France and Italy and its frame has a 47 cm top bar; Dadant US, the usual one in Spain, is 48 and does not fit. If you are going to combine it with material you already own, measure the top bar before ordering. At 430 × 500 mm it stacks on any 10-frame Dadant Blatt body, such as the one of our Hybrid hive; it is no good on Langstroth or Layens either.

02 · HOFFMAN, NO SPACER

The widened side bar sets the distance

Look at the side bar of one of your frames from above: if it widens in the top third until it touches its neighbour, it is Hoffman, and the bee space comes by itself when you push them together; if it is straight top to bottom and the distance is set by a castellated spacer on the box edge, you need the version with spacer, not this one. The frame rest of this super is smooth, with no notches, and it comes with 9 wired Hoffmans: no spacer, none needed. With 9 frames instead of 10 the bees draw thicker combs, which uncap in one pass without leaving half a layer.

03 · WHEN TO ADD IT

As the nectar starts, not once the chamber is blocked

It goes on when the nectar flow begins and the brood chamber starts filling, so the foragers have somewhere to unload. Late, the nectar ends up in the cells the queen needed to lay in, the laying is blocked and the urge to swarm rises. Full, it weighs a good deal more than its 6.2 kg empty: that is why it is harvested frame by frame or between two.

04 · FIXED APIARY

Rests by gravity; for the truck, fastening apart

It arrives assembled, with the 9 wired frames inside: only the foundation is missing. It is fixed-apiary equipment: on a fixed site it rests by gravity on the body and that is enough. It has no migratory fastening; if you move hives by truck, add fix-elem clips, lever catches or straps, or go to migratory equipment.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

25 mm pine instead of 22: three millimetres that are stiffness against warping and thermal mass against temperature swings.