12 frames Dadant Blatt hive with frames and super

01 · TWELVE INSTEAD OF TEN

More room below, less urge to swarm

A twelve-frame brood box gives the queen two more combs of continuous laying and the colony more room for stores before the box starts to feel small. In temperate areas with long flows that means large colonies that take longer to feel the crowding that triggers swarming. The other side is honest: a twelve-frame box, full, is heavy, and you have to want to lift it.

02 · THE EQUIPMENT STOCK

What you are buying is a format, not a box

This is the point that decides the purchase. Supers, crown boards and floors for twelve do not fit a ten-frame hive, or the other way round. If your apiary runs on ten, going to twelve means starting a parallel line of equipment and of handling. It makes every sense if you are going to grow in that size; it makes none for adding a single box to an apiary already set up.

03 · IT ARRIVES WITH FRAMES

Brood box and super come filled

It is one of the few that does not make you order frames separately: twelve frames of 470 × 30 mm in the brood box and eleven of 470 × 16 mm in the super. It also comes with a screened floor, a crown board with a central opening and a vent, a galvanised roof and a two-position adjustable entrance. The joints are interlocked and nailed, which is what stands up to handling a loaded box.

04 · SIZE AND FINISH

Blatt at 47 cm, and the oil needs relief

The frames are Dadant Blatt at 47 cm: the US ones at 48 do not go in. The timber arrives treated with linseed oil, which protects from the start but does not replace exterior paint if the hive is going to live outdoors. Paint the outside before you populate it and you save doing it with bees inside.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Check the space where it will stand as well: a twelve-frame hive is wider than a ten, and on narrow stands or benches it can be tight.