Langstroth Hive Without Super (Brood Box Only) with Hygienic Screen Bottom

01 · WHAT COMES AND WHAT DOES NOT

Everything to start, except the harvest

The whole brood chamber set is here: mesh floor, 10-frame body, inner cover with a wooden frame, hardboard roof clad in galvanised sheet, metal entrance block and the ten wired Hoffmann frames.

What does not come is the super, and it is in the name for a reason: to harvest properly you will need to add supers or shallow supers. This is the base for starting out, splitting, making large nuclei or requeening.

02 · THE MESH FLOOR

It is for counting, not for treating

A mesh floor does two things: it ventilates and it lets whatever drops from the nest fall into the tray. And that allows the important part: counting the natural varroa drop without opening the hive, which is how you decide whether to treat and when.

It is worth saying plainly: a mesh floor is not a treatment. It helps you watch and ventilate, but against varroa it is the authorised product you apply at the right time that acts.

03 · THE HOFFMANN FRAMES

The wide shoulder is the spacer

A Hoffmann frame has the side bar widened at the top, so frames space themselves as you put them side by side. No spacers and no guesswork.

The difference shows during inspection: everything stays aligned, frames come out and go back faster, and you crush fewer bees on closing. They arrive already wired, ready for foundation.

04 · THE TIMBER

Galician pine, dried to 12 %

The body is Pinus pinaster at 25 mm, dried to 12 % moisture. That drying is what stops the timber moving later and producing the warps that leave gaps for robbing.

It is protected with linseed oil, with no chemical treatments, and carries a phytosanitary heat treatment. Linseed oil is not forever: outdoors the finish is worth going over every few seasons.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is the assembled brood chamber, without a super: