Dadant Blatt beehive NICOT®

01 · BLATT OR US

There are two Dadants, and a centimetre between them

Two formats live under the same surname: the Dadant Blatt, with a 47 cm top bar, dominant in France and Italy, and the Dadant US at 48 cm, which is what you normally find in Spain. A centimetre sounds like nothing until you try to hang the frame: the 48 does not sit on the rebates of a Blatt box. So this hive is not bought because the apiary is «Dadant» — it is bought after checking the top bar of the frames you already have, and knowing that if you work in US you will be changing frames, not boxes.

02 · WHAT ARRIVES

The list beats the photo: the frames are bought separately

It is the question that comes up most on this page, in four languages, so here it is as a list and without dressing. The set includes a 10-frame Dadant Blatt body, a 9-frame super, a ventilated floor with its 8.5 mm plastic entrance and a roof. What it does not include: the frames — neither body nor super — the foundation, the crown board or the clips that hold the modules together. Catalogue photos show the hive assembled and populated so the whole thing reads; what ships is what is on this list.

03 · THE PLASTIC

Double wall, smooth surface and cleaning that wood cannot take

The material is recyclable food-grade plastic, and its two real advantages come from that. The first is the double wall, which insulates and damps the temperature swings inside the hive. The second is hygiene: a smooth, non-porous surface cleans thoroughly by scraping or with hot pressure washing, and takes disinfection with bleach or with caustic soda solution — which you cannot approach the same way on wood, because the grain holds. In exchange, it is a material that does not breathe like wood: look after winter ventilation as carefully as you look after warmth, because condensation is what turns up when it is closed too tight.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is a modular hive: body, super, floor and roof come apart and recombine as the season asks, and it weighs a good deal less than its equivalent in wood, which is what makes it comfortable for migration. Before ordering, measure the top bar of your frames and count on buying the 19 frames — 10 for the body and 9 for the super — and their foundation.