Dadant US Migratory Brood Box - 25 mm Solid Pine Wood

01 · WHY 25 MM

Stiffness where 22 gives way

A brood box does not fail in the apiary, it fails in transport: hours of vibration, knocks when loading and straps squeezing stacks of hundreds of kilos. It gives at the corners, which open, and at the walls, which bow until the body loses its rectangle and the super above no longer sits. With 25 mm there is more wood in bending and deeper joints, and more thermal mass to buffer day and night over the brood, which the bees hold in a narrow band by burning stores. How long it lasts depends on handling; the material helps.

02 · DADANT US, NOT BLATT

One centimetre of top bar changes everything

The Dadant US frame has a 48 cm top bar; the French Dadant Blatt, 47. The frame body is the same, 435 mm, and only the lug that rests changes: a Blatt frame in here rattles and a US one does not fit a Blatt body. The ten Hoffman frames supplied are already wired, self-spacing on the frame itself with a 30 mm lug: only the Dadant US brood foundation is missing. If you come from the French system, measure your top bars before ordering.

03 · ENTRANCES AND LID

Two flight fronts, one for the pollen trap

It comes with three sliding metal entrances: two flight entrances, which give two fronts or close by season and journey, and an upper one meant for the migratory front pollen trap (83), which hangs there without fitting anything outside. The lid is wood clad in galvanised sheet, with a metal catch: it takes sun, rain and trailer knocks without warping. Outside, a second coat of linseed oil or water-based paint before the first winter; inside, nothing.

04 · WHAT IT GOES WITH

The 25 mm super and the 22 mm standard

The matching medium super, in the same 25 mm pine with eight wired frames, is 3010. The standard, lighter version of this brood box, in 22 mm with the same inside, is still 17: for a fixed apiary with little handling it costs less and weighs less. It stacks with the house’s migratory Dadant US and Langstroth hives of that footprint.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The brood box is supplied with its ten wired frames and the lid; foundation, super and crown board come separately.