Dadant US wooden brood body, fixed hive

01 · WHAT «FIXED-FLOOR» MEANS

The floor is a separate part, which is why this will not do for a migratory hive

In a fixed-floor hive the floor is an independent piece the body sits on; in a migratory one, brood box and floor are built as a single unit and do not come apart. This body is made for the first arrangement: it rests on a loose floor. It will not go onto a migratory hive, because that one already carries its own floor. It is the question that comes up most on this page, so it is worth settling before anything else.

02 · WHAT IS IN THE BOX

The body and its ten frames; the rest of the hive is not

You get the assembled body, with box-jointed corners, and ten wired Hoffman frames of 48 × 30 cm — Hoffman frames space themselves on the widened side, with no spacer rack. What does not come: floor, entrance, crownboard, roof and foundation. If you are building the whole hive, those are ordered separately and they all have to be the same format.

03 · 48, NOT 47 — AND A CENTIMETRE OF HEIGHT

Measure the footprint before stacking it with gear from elsewhere

Dadant US has a 48 cm top bar and is the usual one in Spain; Dadant Blatt has 47 and dominates in France and Italy. Two parts sharing the name Dadant are not thereby interchangeable. And there is a detail a German customer pointed out that is worth publishing: this body stands 31.5 cm tall, a little more than other Dadant US bodies. Working on its own that does not matter; if you are going to combine it with supers, excluders or crownboards you already own, measure the external footprint and the height first.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

As soon as it arrives, stand it on a flat surface and check that it is square and sits evenly; offer up the ten frames and see that they hang without rubbing. A warp or a faulty frame is far easier to sort out now than with a colony inside. On finish: the maker’s sheet does not document an exterior treatment, so if the timber arrives unprotected, apply an exterior finish suitable for hives and let it dry — the inside is not painted.