10F Dadant Blatt Hive in Cryptomeria wood

01 · WHAT COMES AND WHAT DOES NOT

The super travels empty: count on nine more frames

This is what we get asked most about this hive, so it goes first. The set declared by the maker is brood box, super, screened or standard floor to choose, and ten wired and tensioned frames — the ten for the brood box. The super is supplied without frames: to have it ready you need nine more. And if you also want a feeder crown board and a roof, ask us before ordering, because they do not appear on that contents list.

02 · THE TIMBER

Light to handle, not light on strength

Cryptomeria is the conifer they build temples and houses with in Japan, and its point here is the ratio between weight and strength: fewer kilos per box without dropping the guard against damp or wood-boring insects. It handles better on migration and when stacking loaded supers. Maintenance does not change: treated and refreshed outside, bare inside.

03 · STRAIGHT OR HOFFMAN

Two ways of keeping the gap between combs

In the dropdown you choose how the frames are spaced. Hoffman frames do it themselves: the widened top of their side bars butts against the neighbour and leaves exactly the right gap, so they handle fast, though the shoulders end up propolised. Straight frames space nothing on their own and therefore come with a castellated spacer, the notched piece that gives each lug its position. Choose whichever you are used to working with: mixing the two systems in the same box is the one thing that does not work.

04 · THE SIZE

Blatt, with 47 centimetre frames

Boxes and frames are Dadant Blatt, the usual size in France and Italy: a 47 cm top bar. A Dadant US frame measures 48 and does not fit. The same goes for everything you add later: supers, crown boards and nucs have to be Blatt, and the catalogue carries wooden nucs in this size so you can raise colonies on the same frame.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The price changes with the floor (standard or screened) and the type of frame. And when working out the carriage, count the volume of a whole hive, not the weight of the timber.