Pine comb honey frame - Pack of 10

01 · HOW MANY YOU NEED

Four to a carrier: count carriers, not frames

The carrier frame takes four sections side by side, so what decides your order is the number of carriers you plan to run. A pack of 10 frames kits out two full carriers and leaves two spare for the ones that come back poorly capped; two packs cover five carriers exactly. The ten is not our figure — it is the pack the maker ships.

02 · ASSEMBLY

They come bare, and the wax you add gets eaten

They are untreated pine, 10 × 10 cm across the face and 37 mm deep, and they arrive empty: no foundation, no wire. To keep the comb straight the bees need a guide in the top groove — a thin starter strip or a run of molten wax.

That is worth a moment's thought, because this comb gets chewed and the guide wax is food. Use virgin or cappings wax fit for consumption, not a recycled brood-box foundation sheet: comb honey carries the same residue limits as any other food.

03 · WHEN THEY FILL

In the super on a real flow, or they stall half-drawn

These work upstairs, in the honey super above the queen excluder: down in the brood box they get stained with pollen and brood and stop being saleable. They also want a populous colony and a genuine nectar flow — oil seed rape, lime, clover, heather — because bees only draw fresh wax when there is a surplus. On a thin flow they stall half-drawn and uncapped, and that is what wastes the most frames: better to run one carrier fewer and fill it.

FROM THE APIARY

Before storing a harvested comb or putting it out for sale, put it through the freezer: about two hours at -15 °C is enough provided the whole mass reaches that temperature, and it breaks the wax moth cycle. Bag it afterwards and leave it sealed until the counter.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

What you get is 10 loose wooden frames: the carrier that holds them, the guide wax and the retail packaging are all separate. And this is not a refill for the APIBOX system, which uses plastic trays in its own pre-cut frame.