8F Dadant Blatt Super NICOT®

01 · THE SIZE

47 cm top bar on a Dadant 10 footprint

It is Dadant Blatt, the standard in France and Italy: 47 × 16 shallow frames with a 47 cm top bar. 48 cm Dadant US frames, the usual ones in Spain, do not fit; measure the top bar of yours before ordering. Outside it measures 430 × 500 mm, so it stacks on the 10-frame NICOT® body and on any wooden French Dadant 10 with that same footprint.

02 · WHY 8

Eight straight frames, spaced at the factory

The spacing ridges and the inter-frame band come moulded into the plastic, calculated for eight straight frames, with no Hoffman and no spacer bar to buy. With that spacing the bees draw the comb out until the gap is filled: heavier frames, cappings that stand proud of the bar and cut in one pass, and eight frames in the extractor instead of ten. The trade-off: it works with drawn comb; with new foundation the gap is too wide and the bees fill it with bridges. To draw foundation, the 9-frame one or already drawn frames.

03 · THE MATERIAL

Double-wall HDPE, 2.3 kg and no dyes

Food-grade plastic without dyes or solvents, moulded with a 25 mm double wall and air chamber, which insulates more than board and does not rot, split or need paint. It weighs 2.3 kg empty, according to NICOT, against the 4-5 of a wooden one. Moulded side handles. Pressure-clean with hot water and disinfect with bleach, never a blowtorch: plastic warps in the flame.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The box only

You receive the empty shallow super: the 47 × 16 frames, wooden or plastic with moulded cell, come separately; so do the centring clips that hold it to the body for migration. As the box is plastic and the bees propolise all the same, scrape the inter-frame band between harvests so the frames keep seating at their height.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Made in France by NICOT®; the 9-frame sister shares footprint and height.