# The forgotten "Dadant Deep" hive



## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

I should have said the *almost* forgotten Dadant Deep hive.

When I first started keeping bees in the late 1970's, I used the USA standard setup, which is two 10-frame Langstroth deeps for the brood chamber, with mostly medium supers on top for honey. I kept these hives in orange groves, back when southern California still had such things. After a few years, I had built my little apiary up to about 12 hives from catching swarms, when a flood hit the orange grove and washed absolutely everything away never to be seen again. Dejected and having other projects competing for my time, I never rebuilt and gave away my little 4-frame hand crank extractor. When I restarted keeping bees in 2010, I went with all 8-frame mediums for everything based on the recommendations of Michael Bush. 

As I learned more about beekeeping, I started to think that having larger combs would maybe allow the queen to lay more efficiently due to fewer impediments or restrictions to her movement, which would result in a larger bee population and more honey collected. 
Almost 2 years ago, I asked posted on this forum asking about a source for hive boxes larger than the standard Langstroth 10-frame deep. I got lots of responses about various ways to make my own, or about sources in Europe, etc. Lucky for me, Beesource member, Fusion_Power, shared an interest in the old-fashioned large hives, and kindly undertook the herculean task of re-creating the Dadant Deep. This entailed tracking down foundation of the appropriate size, finding a wood miller to mill the +14" boards for the boxes, and Fusion_Power himself making the bottom boards, migratory cover, and, most importantly, the huge frames. 

That thread is linked, here: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?320011-jumbo-or-extra-large-hive-bodies-source

Last year, Fusion_Power supplied me with the equipment for two complete Dadant Deep hives. The frames were built on 1-1/4" centers, resulting in 14 frames per box. Time was my enemy, though, and I was not able to get things assembled in time to install new bee packages in 2016. 

This year, Fusion_Power supplied me with equipment for another two complete Dadant Deeps, this time, with most of the assembly done. I got my act together and finished the remaining assembly process, and now I have four Dadant Deep hives ready for package installation this Saturday (April 29, 2017). 

Here's a few photos comparing the Langstroth 10-frame deep bodies and frames (on the left) to a newly minted Dadant Deep. (The Langstroth deeps have been converted to sit on top of the Dadant Deep by nailing on a 2x4, in order to house a feed jar):








Note Fusion_Power's version of the Dadant Deep has 14 frames due to the 1-1/4" end bars.













A shim for a jar feeder that I cobbled together, myself.









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## appalachianoutdoors (May 16, 2015)

Do you mean the 12 frame boxes? If so, I have access to a good number of those sitting in an old barn...


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

Try these:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...esigns-and-their-advantages-and-disadvantages

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?320011-jumbo-or-extra-large-hive-bodies-source

I found these absolutely fascinating, along with the various contributions to the two-queen-colony thread on the commercial forum (into which I put some newbie-ly out-of-place posts; ignore that please):

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?306234-Running-two-queen-colonies

I think this is a service to readers of your thread. I am still following up the super-deep frame issue with double-medium (12 7/8" long) frames with a swarm and plan to install a couple more.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

There are 6 mediums on the way shinbone. With the 2 you already have, you will have 8 supers for 4 hives. They went out yesterday and show to deliver Thursday.

Appalachianoutdoors, if you look at the pictures, there are 14 frames in that box.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

My apologies to the folks that have already posted in this thread. Beesource is running super slow for me, and it is taking hours to link to the photos and correct all my typing errors.

FP - thanks for the update and I am looking forward to watching the bees fill those supers with honey.



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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

I'm working towards this setup myself right now but works been all in the way lately. I should have some frames done tomorrow (thanks for the foundation FP) and will slide them into double medium broodnests to start getting them drawn and populated. The frames are gonna be 7/8" straight cut with 3/8" button spacers. I've got some rough cut 1" to build the boxes, although I'll have to splice for the main hives, should work good. Plan is for all medium supers since that's what I've already got. Looking forward to it, trials, tribulations and all that.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

They aren't forgotten because I have used ten and twelve frame sizes since 1979.

10 frame:



12 frame:


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

odfrank, how do you handle combbuilding. foundation or no?


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## Duncan151 (Aug 3, 2013)

Shinbone, I too have a couple of boxes that look very similar to yours, have had bees in them for almost three weeks. So far I am really liking them, and am grateful to Fusion Power for his hard work and help!!!!









I have not had time to take inside pictures, but I cut a piece of scrap OSB and put a deep over it to hold the feed can. I have done one full inspection, and they are drawing out those frames just fine!


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

dtrooster said:


> odfrank, how do you handle combbuilding. foundation or no?



Yes I use foundation.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

odfrank - Looks like you have been having great success for many years with large hives in your apiary. Since many of us "large-hive-body" beeks are pretty new to the game, do you have any tips to share for working these bigger hives? Any pitfalls for us to avoid? And, what are the dimensions of your frames?



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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I can offer a couple of management tips.

Be prepared to move frames to get all of them drawn. As the bees expand, they will tend to work upward into the supers instead of sideways onto frames of foundation. I am swapping positions between frames of foundation and drawn combs to get the bees to entirely occupy the brood box. Once all the combs are drawn, it is easy to swap frames in or out of the brood area as needed.

The bees will avoid drawing comb near the entrance. I am using Killion bottom boards which eliminates this problem. You can put the entrance reducers in so that one side is protected from light while the other side is open. The bees will draw the combs on the protected side down to the bottom bars at which time the entrance can be swapped so the other frames will be drawn.

Learn to slide the frames to one side. I do this by removing 2 frames and then sliding the rest until I get to the brood area. It is really easy with frames that fit in the box properly.

Work on skill at lifting the frames out of the box so that you don't crush bees. I put in quite a bit of time on this because it is a common way to damage queens.

I am managing by removing frames when the bees do not occupy them. This means that in winter I will cut the colony down to about 5 or 6 frames and then give frames back in spring as they expand. The advantages of doing this are mostly to manage hive beetles but also because I can cull combs and recondition frames during winter.


It is impressive to see a colony on these frames with 8 or 9 wall to wall with brood and a few more half full. Based on what I am seeing, the size frame definitely affects the number of eggs a queen lays.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Fusion_power said:


> I can offer a couple of management tips. . . .


Thanks for the great info! Nothing I hate more than "re-inventing the wheel."



Fusion_power said:


> The bees will avoid drawing comb near the entrance. I am using Killion bottom boards which eliminates this problem.


I am having trouble visualizing this arrangement. Can you provide more detail on this, or perhaps a photo?



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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

I started to try a hive with frames deep enough to use in 2 mediums stacked atop each other. That would keep me from having to have deep boxes, I could run all mediums, then I decided that a non standard frame would pretty much eliminate me from being able to sell nucs, so I decided against it.

Good luck with the new hives. I've seen one of Dar's in person. They're huge.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

shinbone said:


> odfrank - Looks like you have been having great success for many years with large hives in your apiary. Since many of us "large-hive-body" beeks are pretty new to the game, do you have any tips to share for working these bigger hives? Any pitfalls for us to avoid? And, what are the dimensions of your frames?


I use 11 1/4" deep frames with foundation. I work them similarly to langstroth hives. The biggest problem: if you need to extract them very few extractors will fit them. I have an old 20 frame Dadant that will fit four at a time. I get the best combs if I draw them out first as a honey supper. You will need a helper who can lift a 100 lb. box.


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## Greenride (Jul 7, 2013)

Are they going on the roof top? Argh thinking of that makes my back hurt.
Keep us updated on the progress, I'm very interested in your comparison of the differences from mediums.
What's your typical honey harvest? You're in suburban Denver, right?
Fabian


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

There are pictures on the deep hive thread. http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?320011/page9 about 2/3 of the way down the page. Look for the slatted rack.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Greenride said:


> Are they going on the roof top? Argh thinking of that makes my back hurt.
> Keep us updated on the progress, I'm very interested in your comparison of the differences from mediums.
> What's your typical honey harvest? You're in suburban Denver, right?
> Fabian


Yes, I am in suburban Denver.

And, the hives are indeed going up on my roof. Moving equipment up and down the stairs is a PITA. But, since the bee equipment is modular, I can always break things down into manageable loads. Also, once I place a hive I don't move it, so I am only swapping medium supers in and out. The worst part is during harvest when I have to carry heavy supers filled with honey down the stairs, but I remind myself that is a good problem to have.

Last year, I had 4 hives come through winter and bought 4 packages. I pulled 404 lbs of honey in the Fall, mostly from the over-wintered hives, though the packages did well enough to provide some honey to harvest, too.

This year, I had 8 out of 10 hives make it through Winter, although one is so small (literally, a grapefruit-size cluster at the end of February) that I am surprised it survived, and it certainly won't produce surplus honey this Fall. Including new packages and swarm splits, I have 13 hives for now.



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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

I got one hive body and a medium super put together today. Next is the bottom board which I think I'm building with openings on both ends for adaptability. The top just migratory I guess. I've got a monster all medium hive that I'm fixing to push to make queen cells for 2 medium splits and do a Taranov split into the Square deep. Gotta get on the stick


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

I hauled all the new Dadant Deep equipment onto the bee shed roof and set everything up on their leveling platforms ready to receive new bee packages this weekend. As seen in the photos, each hive set-up includes a bottom board, one Dadant Deep body, a feed jar shim, and a Langstroth 10-frame deep/top adapted to cover the fed jar . Once feeding the packages is done, the Langstroths will come off and Dadant migratory tops will go on the hive bodies. Also, you can see entrance reducers on each hive.


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

Brad Bee said:


> I started to try a hive with frames deep enough to use in 2 mediums stacked atop each other. That would keep me from having to have deep boxes, I could run all mediums, then I decided that a non standard frame would pretty much eliminate me from being able to sell nucs, so I decided against it....


Brad: I thought similar things, but realized that I could run a small set of hives this way in case honey production were to be 1) lower management, or 2) lower management. Or perhaps the management would be less burdensome. One never knows. I received uniformly glowing reports from the 4 or more different parties responding to this issue. One reported that as he transitioned into raising bees rather than honey he found the large (12 7/8") frames to be un-salable. But that's not my purpose. And I think that I can trim queen cells from frames for my increase purposes, where needed. I'll have lots of other hardware in play, as I plan also to examine Roland's Wisconsin practices with deep-on-deep boxes.

When I think about the square boxes, it seems to me that some of the 6-frame "nuc" hardware, such as Ian was showing in three-queen colony use in Canada, would stack perfectly onto the square Dadant jumbos. Lots of options suggest themselves to me. I've set up one double-medium 12 7/8" frame box and plan to do more in the coming week or two. I grew tired of looking through multiple deep frames for bees with double deep brood boxes. The things Dar, Bernhard, AR_Beekeeper, Oliver, and others reported seemed to me, for my purposes, to be ideal. I'm really looking forward to learning about this first-hand.

Michael


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

I'm going for honey myself, the selling bees market around here is pretty sewed up anyway . My plan is to build 6 frame nucs/swarm traps that will fit over a divided square hive to dual purpose as top boxes for overwintering 2 hives together. My climate is so temperate they burn lots of honey over winter. The plan is coming together, I think. Lol.


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## DutchBee (Jul 14, 2009)

odfrank said:


> I use 11 1/4" deep frames with foundation. I work them similarly to langstroth hives. The biggest problem: if you need to extract them very few extractors will fit them. I have an old 20 frame Dadant that will fit four at a time. I get the best combs if I draw them out first as a honey supper. You will need a helper who can lift a 100 lb. box.


My back hurts just thinking about it!


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

The Dadant Deeps received their new bee packages on Sunday. The packages were shaken in California on Thursday, so today, Monday, I went in and checked for queen acceptance. All the new queens were accepted, and so I replaced the cork with a marsh mellow so the new queen would be chewed out in a few hours. 

Here's how things looked with the packages installed:




After reinserting the queen cage between frames with the marsh mellow plug, I put the feed shim in place and set a jar of of 1:1 syrup with a little vinegar as a preservative over the screened access hole. This setup allows me to replenish sugar syrup without disturbing the hive or needing a bee suit. I'll check for eggs in about 10 days and keep them in syrup for the next few months. Otherwise, these new bees have a lot of comb to build, and I'll just let them get to it with minimal interference from me.


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

Nice. Mine needs one more coat of paint and and its ready. I caught a football swarm today that's in a double medium with frames only in the top. I'm gonna pull a few tomorrow and slide in some super deep frames, as many as I can anyway. Give them a couple weeks and transfer them into this monstrosity of a hive I built. Gonna be cool


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

As mentioned above, the 4 packages were hived on 4/30. Today, 5/5, I went in to confirm queen release.

2 queens were already laying, and all 4 hives were building comb like crazy! The bees had already filled a lot of cells with syrup/nectar and pollen/pollen sub. These were super healthy packages, with probably about 4lbs of bees each, and with a lot of young bees, too. They are performing great. Each hive has sucked down about 1/2 gallon of 1:1 syrup, too. Here's a video and a few photos:


https://randallcherry.smugmug.com/2017/Bees-2017/i-JQxpb4f/A










 










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## humm (Jul 23, 2015)

How much vinegar do you add to a gallon of syrup, and what difference do you notice between with or without using it?


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

humm said:


> How much vinegar do you add to a gallon of syrup, and what difference do you notice between with or without using it?


I put 30 ml of apple cider vinegar into 4.75 gal of 1:1 syrup as a preservative. That brought the pH of the syrup to 4.8, but I didn't measure the starting pH, so I can't say how much change the 30 ml caused. My tap water has a pH of about 6.8, though. I wanted something to increase the shelf life of the syrup without promoting robbing like Honey Bee Healthy can sometimes do. 

PH of honey is 4.0 or less, but I've never used vinegar, before, so I went a little easy with it. If the bees take this current batch of syrup without any issues, next time I would consider adding more vinegar to push the pH down into the low 4's. While the bees seem to be quickly taking the syrup so it won't spoil in the feed jar, I never know how long the extra syrup will sit in its 5 gallon bucket until I need it, so I like extending the syrup's shelf life as much as reasonably possible.


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## Nicole (Jan 7, 2009)

I put bees in the two hives I got from fusion_power last week and they are doing great as well. I drill my boxes and put on entrance disks instead of using bottom boards but I do have them sitting on the Killion racks (I'd prefer to have down a simple plywood bottom sheet underneath but haven't gotten around to making them yet). Combined with a tall stand, this is to deter the majority of the critters I've seen on my property. There's no shortage of raccoons, opossums, skunks, and rodents here. I also like how easy it makes them to move if necessary.

I do have to say, getting these hives has given me a new-found appreciation for woodworking. They're beautiful and the frames are really nice. And since compatible equipment isn't readily available, I find myself internet window-shopping for a table saw.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

>I drill my boxes and put on entrance disks instead of using bottom boards

I caution you to add drainage holes to your hives with elevated entrance disks and migratory covers. THEY TAKE ON WATER. Hive detritus makes for wonderful waterproofing of hives sitting on sealed bottom boards. I had an eight frame box fill up with 4" of water to the entrance disk hole. The cluster was clinging on above the reservoir below. This bait hive only sat out in a few spring rains.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

>>I drill my boxes and put on entrance disks instead of using bottom boards

A brood chamber of these proportions can make for huge populations of foragers coming and going, and the need to ventilate these large populations. I question if a 1" entrance disk hole is big enough for all that traffic and allow enough air flow to properly ventilate the box.


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## Nicole (Jan 7, 2009)

odfrank said:


> >>I drill my boxes and put on entrance disks instead of using bottom boards
> 
> A brood chamber of these proportions can make for huge populations of foragers coming and going, and the need to ventilate these large populations. I question if a 1" entrance disk hole is big enough for all that traffic and allow enough air flow to properly ventilate the box.


Thanks for the input. I'll be shimming open the lid for a top entrance as well once it is necessary, definitely while supers are on. I have bottom boards if I need them and am not opposed to changing things up as I go.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I'm currently taking Bee Management 101 with these hives. Average honey surplus so far is 1 shallow super per hive which will extract out to about 34 pounds of honey. The flow is about half over so there is plenty of time to fill another shallow. 

Giving the bees 14 large frames to raise brood and store honey is a huge positive. One of my hives has a queen that has laid in 12 frames and has an incredible population of bees. I estimate that colony is peaking right at 90,000 bees! Most of the others have 10 frames of brood and 60 to 70 thousand bees.

Brother Adam was spot on when he said this style hive reduces swarming impulse. I went through colonies an average of once per week removing queen cells when found and preparing for the main flow. Inspection takes about half as much time as with Langstroth hives and there is a LOT less heavy lifting involved. There are no more double brood chambers, only the single box where all the brood tends to stay. With 14 frames in the box, at least 2 will be honey and pollen and the rest have to be gone through. That is only 12 frames at most that I have to look at to do a thorough inspection.

Even so, I still let 3 colonies swarm which effectively made them dinks for producing honey. One of the three is still queenless and having to be propped up with brood from another hive. The other two are gradually rebuilding and will make at least some surplus honey. I consider this to be my biggest management failure this year.

Where did I go wrong? I did not equalize the colonies properly in early spring. By mid-March, I should have balanced all colonies so that all of them were at the same approximate point in getting ready for the flow. This would have simplified later management immensely and would have made a couple of smaller colonies strong enough to peak before the flow instead of peaking now when it is half over.

I put a double brood box on a couple of colonies to get combs drawn out. Today I picked up one that was 2/3 full of honey. It was HEAVY! I'm strong enough to handle them, but not used to lifting roughly 90 pounds to get to the brood nest. In future, I will do my best to get comb drawn in the brood nest and leave the upper boxes as shallows for surplus honey.

Bernhard's tip about turning supers 90 degrees is also a huge gain. I am putting all of my supers on at right angles because it gets the bees active in the super earlier. Why? Because no matter where the brood nest is located in the box below, it will always have some area in contact with every frame above. A bait frame gets immediate bee activity and shortly after they will draw the frames beside it.

I had one other near disaster that worked out pretty well. One colony built up well in advance of the rest and reached a huge population about 3 weeks ago. I had to split it 4 ways to keep it from swarming. The parent colony has still made nearly a full deep of surplus honey and is going gangbusters to finish out the flow. Two of the three others have mated and laying queens. One was queenless so I gave them some brood and eggs to raise another queen.

My focus now will be on finishing out the flow with as much surplus as possible while raising queens to requeen all hives with a young queen for next year.

Did I mention that 2 queens never offered to swarm at all? Both were already selected breeders and are in process of producing daughters now.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Dar - Thanks for the update and the additional management information.


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

Ok, so what are you guys taking to make you stronger as you age? Is it legal? If not, just PM me. Thanks, J


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

It you stay doing you should be able to keep it up barring physical injury. I'm going to the same setup except using medium supers. I don't figure to ever let them get more than 2 before pulling a box. Maybe 3 for short periods of time but that box would never be allowed to fill up. A square medium would be 3 gallons+, that's worth my time. That puts the top one about chest high. i figure it's easier to handle 60 pounds at that height than 40 at neck height or higher


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Fivej said:


> Ok, so what are you guys taking to make you stronger as you age? Is it legal? If not, just PM me. Thanks, J


I never sit on my azz watching TV (don't even own one). No soft drinks. The real secret, though, is I will not move these big hives.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I'm with shinbone on this one. I spent the last 15 years without a TV. I bought one just before Christmas so I can watch movies on Amazon. So far I'm averaging 1 movie a week. Exercise and healthy eating are the key to staying physically fit. As for moving them, I've picked up 2 or 3 that were full of honey. I'm 6'2" tall and 250 pounds. I can still pick up a 100 pound bag of potatoes under each arm and carry them to the car.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

I did a quick inspection of the 4 new packages in the Dadant Deep hives, which were installed 14 days ago.

All the hives are doing great. Really really great. 

3 hives had a patch of capped brood about the size of my open hand on both sides of two frames. The 4th hive had only eggs and larva in equivalent spots, due to beekeeper error delaying queen release by about 3 days. Each hive has consumed a little over 1.5 gallons of 1:1 syrup since installation.

The laying pattern of the queens was great with a huge patch of open and capped brood in the center of the frames surrounded by a lot of nectar and pollen. These big frames are already producing good results by letting the queen stretch out her laying pattern on each frame, which is exactly what I had hoped for.

Next inspection will probably be next weekend, and will include photos.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Did an OAV treatment on the four new Dadant Deeps on 5/14. I put witness boards in two of them (Hive #8 and Hive #9) to monitor the mite fall. Hive #9 did not have any brood capped, yet. Hive #8 had started capping brood within the last 2 days. Here are the results.

The OA that I used, stored in an old wood bleach container because it is easy to reseal:




Sliding the witness board (white coroplast sheet) into the hive:




The basic OAV'ing setup:




Sealing the hive:






Applying the OAV:






Mite falls:

HIve #8: 1st day after OAV - 4 mites



Hive #9: 1st day after OAV - 2 mites



Multiple mite fall photos are pretty boring, so here are just the numbers:

2nd day after OAV: Hive #8 - 1 mite; Hive #9 - 0 mites
3rd day after OAV: Hive #8 - 1 mite; Hive #9 - 0 mites
4th day after OAV: Hive #8 - 0 mite; Hive #9 - 0 mites
5th day after OAV: Hive #8 - 0 mite; Hive #9 - 2 mites

Hives were OAV'ed again on day 5 (5/19). Results to follow


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Had some snow fall on 5/19:





Did an inspection of one of the Dadant Deep hives on 5/20. It is doing well! Threw a regular deep frame into the photo for comparison. Note that with the big Dadant Deep frame, there is enough room that even the large patch of brood, which is itself almost as big as an entire regular deep frame, is surrounded by plenty of honey and pollen on the same comb. 




There are four frames with brood like this on both sides in this hive. This package is really taking off, and may even produce some surplus honey in its first year.







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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Good looking bees in some good looking equipment. Hope you don't make a living painting.

How have the early flows of nectar and pollen worked out for the timing of package install?


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

shinbone: zero is a pretty low number and easy to compare against any other test. For instance, do you do any drone brood mite counts? It would seem that finding any mites in drone brood would argue that your technique for OA and mite drop count has some development to be done. When I use any measurement technique, I really, really want to have a second one available to cross-correlate and do sanity checks on what the answers mean.

This is not a dig at you, only a question about how much self-check you do in your procedures. It's hard to do a good self-check, by the way. But I really appreciate your taking the time to share.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Yes, this is really good equipment!  We did have an early start to Spring, and 3 of my over-wintered hives exploded with bees and honey. One is 6' tall after I split it. But, we were in a "mini-drought" by the time these packages showed up. We are now getting a bunch of moisture again, so I hope our flow gets going again.

The big sags and drips in the paint is because the epoxy began to "cook off" i.e. set up, in its pot, and I was painting on stuff with the texture of cold honey towards the end. I will have to work with smaller batches the next time I paint with epoxy.

As to mite numbers, I would say counting mite fall after a _proper_ OAV'ing is a super reliable way to count mites, although it doesn't give a precise quantification if someone is checking for economic threshold, which I don't do. Plus, I am not killing bees to count mites, but, rather, killing mites to count mites. Although not with these two hives because they are new from packages, but I "skewer" lots of drone comb on a cappings scratcher in the Spring to look for mites, and I hardly see any (0 or 1 per 50 drones) in the hives that were OAV'ed in the Fall when broodless. And that is on the first drones after Winter when the starving mites are going to be absolutely piling into the drone brood. So, OAV/mite fall and pulling drones both show low mite numbers in my apiary. It takes the right equipment and a little experience, but OAV works really well to keep the mite numbers down.

These hives are going to get 4 OAV's at 5 days apart, so there will be more mite fall counts to come in the next few weeks.




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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Wait until you see a frame top bar to bottom bar and side to side full of brood. I had one queen that kept 6 of them that full plus 4 more frames partially full.


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

Looking good:thumbsup:


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

shinbone said:


> Hives were OAV'ed again on day five (5/19). Results to follow


5/20; 1st day after 2nd OAV: Hive #8 = 6 mites; Hive #9 = 0 mites
5/21; 2nd day after 2nd OAV: Hive #8 = 0 mites; Hive #9 = 0 mites
5/22; 3rd day after 2nd OAV: Hive #8 = n/a; Hive #9 = n/a (didn't check mites on this day)
5/23; 4th day after 2nd OAV: Hive #8 - 0 mites; Hive #9 = 1 mites (3rd and 4th day combined into one reading)
5/24; 5th day after 2nd OAV: Hive #8 - 0 mites; Hive #9 = 1 mites


Hives received 3rd OAV today (5/24) five days after the second OVA on 5/19. Results to follow.


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## Bill Bru (Apr 23, 2015)

I'm guessing that 14 frame dimension hive advocates must have much better than average back and arm muscles?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> I'm guessing that 14 frame dimension hive advocates must have much better than average back and arm muscles?


 When used as intended as a brood chamber, the weight is not that high. On a permanent location, they are not moved very often. If I had to move more than one or two of them, I would get my son to help. I've moved double brood chamber Langstroth hives by myself often enough. It is far easier to move square Dadant boxes. In other words, weight is not enough of an issue to worry about.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I also have not found them a problem to move, which I have little need to. They don't fit my Langstroth hive carrier, but a handtruck or other wheeled carrier works fine. No heavier or cumberson than a double deep. 




Bill Bru said:


> I'm guessing that 14 frame dimension hive advocates must have much better than average back and arm muscles?


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Bill Bru said:


> I'm guessing that 14 frame dimension hive advocates must have much better than average back and arm muscles?


We tend to be better looking, too.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

As some of my math minded friends say, "correlation does not equal causation".


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

I've taken advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend to assembly and paint 8 Dadant-sized medium supers. These will hold standard-size medium frames and will be the honey supers on the Dadant deeps. Like the brood chambers I knocked together, these are made from cypress wood, and are assembled with Titebond III glue, stainless steel ringshank nails, and painted with two-part epoxy paint with the first layer being a thinned, penetrating coat. I figure these boxes are about as indestructible as a bee box can be, and should easily outlast me. 

At this point, I've got enough of these supers to have two per hive, which should get me through the first year with the big hives. I am hopeful I will need more next year.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

As mentioned above, the hives got their 3rd OAV treatment on 5/24. Here are the results:

5/25; 1st day after 3rd OAV: Hive #8 = 5 mites; Hive #9 = 0 mites
5/26; 2nd day after 3rd OAV: Hive #8 = 1 mites; Hive #9 = 0 mites
5/27; 3rd day after 3rd OAV: Hive #8 = 1 mite; Hive #9 = 0 mites
5/28; 4th day after 3rd OAV: Hive #8 - 0 mites; Hive #9 = 0 mites
5/29; 5th day after 3rd OAV: Hive #8 - 1 mites; Hive #9 = 0 mites

They got their 4th and final OAV treatment today (5/29).


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Inspected one of the Dadant deep hives today. Things are still looking good. Look at all the fuzzy new bees!


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I get a kick out of seeing a beekeeper dressed in full suit with nitrile gloves.... and open top shoes.

Nice photos! Looks like there are 8 frames drawn and maybe 6 more that have not been touched yet. That is the stage where they show a distinct preference to work above the brood instead of to the side. I rotated outside combs with a frame of foundation to get them to keep expanding to the side.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Fusion_power said:


> I get a kick out of seeing a beekeeper dressed in full suit with nitrile gloves.... and open top shoes.


Fashion before function! 

Thanks for the tip on rotating frames. I'll give that a try.


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

Bernhard's comments on square brood box experience with this geometry gave recommendations to use only part of the brood box, restricting the queen to 6 or 7 frames tops with a follower board. His conclusion for his bees in his place and climate, of course, but with the observation of egg-laying rate of a queen, the conclusion seemed reasonable to use her full capacity and not give the bees reason to think she was inadequate. He said he left the unoccupied part beyond the follower board with an open screen, closing off the brood area.

Can anyone trying these boxes comment from experience on these things? Thanks. Still trying to learn/understand.

Michael


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## JeronimoJC (Jul 21, 2016)

I tried following Bernhard's system too (square Dadant, follower, queen excluder, etc.). I believe keeping the nest compacted combined with deeper frames aided in colony growth. Where I failed is I wasn't around when the colony produced queen cells and it swarmed. Most importantly, I really like the idea of leaving an empty space in the hive. This makes for easy and fast inspections as you can slide frames without having to remove frames.


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

I think the problem with Bernard's way is until you know what you're looking at and how to react it leaves a smaller margin of error for things to get sideways quick. The same experience is needed to get it back straight before sideways turns backwards. Timing and preparation I think are key also. Starting on a good flow with no drawn comb for supers is guaranteed sideways or backwards from what I've seen.


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

dtrooster said:


> ....Starting on a good flow with no drawn comb for supers is guaranteed sideways or backwards from what I've seen.


And that's exactly where I started: no drawn comb and a slow-starting swarm (turned out to be a secondary swarm with virgin queen, based on length of time before brood was present). I still don't know how this will turn out. And then my table saw quit on me and I haven't been able to make all of the deep frames I had wanted to make.

[Addendum: and it was the worst way to have "no drawn comb" that I can think of -- 100% bare plastic foundation, although it was heavily waxed and only a few months since purchase.]


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Building out new comb is always the initial hump a new hive on new equipment must get over. Fortunately, that only has to happen once with new equipment.

Not sure what the best method for dealing with this problem is. I am not smart enough to be using any sophisticated hive manipulations. Instead, I am just using "brute force" and am feeding syrup to the new hives like crazy. So far, since being hived on April 29th (34 days ago), each hive has consumed about 3.5 gallons of 1:1 syrup. They will get their 4th gallon tomorrow. 

Their consumption of syrup has tapered off a little since our flow started, but they are still taking syrup, just not as fast as at first. My plan is to feed them until they stop taking the syrup; or have built out all 14 of the Dadant deep frames; or winter comes, whichever happens first!


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## dtrooster (Apr 4, 2016)

I'm not gonna speak for the other 2 guys but your situation and mine sound totally different. Getting comb drawn in the deep doesn't seem to be an issue, getting it drawn and not filled with nectar is. I'm thinking ahead to next spring, our flow comes on early, hard and fast and I don't think we ever get into a true dearth. Unless I come up with a better plan this thing is gonna be a swarm machine by late April early May. I don't want to hijack your thread but will be watching with much interest


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

"Swarm machine." 

Yes, I am not sure how I will deal with swarm season, when it comes next year. I know Fusion_Power has some thoughts on the subject based on his experience. 

I've got a lot to learn - I am happy for anyone who has suggestions on how to deal with swarming when working with these big hives is more than welcome to chime in with their thoughts.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

A lot depends on selecting queens with low swarming tendency. When that fails, pull a nuc from each strong colony to keep them just under swarm strength. There is also a high probability that Walt Wrights checkerboarding above an excluder could help. I was able to keep swarming in check by a combination of queen cell removal and pulling nucs. It was not 100% effective. 3 colonies swarmed anyway. I am replacing all of the queens in the colonies that swarmed with queens raised from a colony that did not try to swarm.

There is no reason why a colony with 6 Dadant frames of bees should throw a swarm, yet that happened with 2 colonies. It was easier to manage the largest colonies. Pulling a nuc was 100% effective keeping them out of the trees. I am speculating that the small colonies that swarmed were the result of a poor queen that was superceded then turned into a swarm once the cells were capped.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Yesterday afternoon I did some tweaks to my inner cover design - I increased its thickness to accommodate a sheet of 2" polystyrene foam for insulation in the winter, and added a top entrance. Insulation on the top of a hive in the winter is always good to reduce condensation on the upper surface of the bees' living space. Also, I am a big fan of upper entrances (in addition to the lower entrance) to give the bees alternative access after a big snowstorm, and, more importantly, to allow the bees to more easily control the temperature/humidity of their living space.

 






That corner gap is carpenter error, and will get plugged once I am done feeding the hives:








The inner cover is upside down in the photo below:




Another upside down view. The Freud "Precision-Shear" Forstner bit cuts a very clean hole:




Again, looking at the bottom surface of the inner cover:




The round profile of the hole perfectly accepts a smoker to make smoking the hive super easy.




The round hole/rubber stopper combination makes it easy to close the hole, if necessary. 
Plus, I can insert stoppers with a hole in the center to reduce the size of the entrance, such as in the winter.








.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Cute!


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

I just weighed a frame full of honey. It is slightly thick of a size that only 12 would fit in a square Dadant box. The frame weighs 10 pounds 15 ounces. This suggests 14 frames drawn evenly will weigh 9 pounds each or a total of about 125 pounds for a box full of honey. Allowing 5 pounds for the box, that is 130 pounds to pick up. A Buckfast breeder queen produced this box of honey. I am crediting her hive with 80 pounds for the year because I harvested 8 full frames of honey. The colony still has 5 full frames of honey in the brood box. A colony beside this one has a full square deep box plus a full shallow on top. I expect it to yield about 150 pounds of honey. I'm liking this a LOT. The only downside is that I'm not looking forward to picking up a box full of honey at 130 pounds or so.

On a side note, I have three confirmed mated and laying Buckfast daughters raised from the above breeder queen. They are mated to drones raised from queens of my line crossed with Carpenter drones.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Fusion_power said:


> There are 6 mediums on the way shinbone. With the 2 you already have, you will have 8 supers for 4 hives. They went out yesterday and show to deliver Thursday.
> 
> Appalachianoutdoors, if you look at the pictures, there are 14 frames in that box.


 The Jumbo Dadants that I worked in OH almost 40 years ago contained 12 frames. I believe the original Jumbo Dadants were 12 frames wide. But who's counting?


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

sqkcrk said:


> The Jumbo Dadants that I worked in OH almost 40 years ago contained 12 frames. I believe the original Jumbo Dadants were 12 frames wide. But who's counting?


Maybe you Mark?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Maybe Charles Dadant.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> Maybe Charles Dadant.


At only 12 frames per box, Charles Dadant was thinking small.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Dadant trialed hives of every size imaginable from way too small to way too large including "coffin" hives that had frames with 6 sides so the comb was more nearly round in cross-section. Keep in mind that the original Dadant hive held 9 frames and was based on Quinby's design. It was longer than a Langstroth by an inch or so. The Dadant hive sold widely in Europe has frames the same length as Langstroth frames. It is referred to as the Dadant Blatt or Modified Dadant hive and holds 11 frames. Brother Adam adopted the 12 frame Modified Dadant which is a square hive with 1.5 inch comb spacing and length the same as Langstroth frames. When I started building frames, it was obvious that the 1.25 inch frames I've used for the last 40 years would fit 14 in a square Dadant box. So the end result is that those of us running these boxes are running a square box with Langstroth length of 18 5/16 interior measure, the same width, 11 5/8 inch depth, 11 1/4 inch frames with 1 1/4 inch spacing for the combs. Now we know that a comb full of honey is about 9 pounds which permits easy setup for winter. I need 5 combs of honey for worst case wintering. My bees often winter on less.

As I've stated elsewhere, the combination of 5.1 foundation with 1 1/4 inch comb spacing will result in earlier spring buildup. Swarm control will be required a couple of weeks earlier than with other frame designs.

The only disparity I've found between what I expected these hives to do and actual experience is that the bees tend to concentrate on one side of the hive and do not readily draw foundation all the way to the other side. This is why I've given advise to rotate frames of foundation into the side of the brood nest to keep the bees expanding and fill the box with comb. One thing Brother Adam wrote that I can appreciate now is that only queens of the highest potential can really use this size box.

Six or seven combs will hold all the brood my best queens can produce. This permits me to run 2 queens in a horizontal system with 7 frames on each side. I have not tried running 2 queens during the flow yet.

I have one single colony that totally filled the hive body with 12 frames of brood and produced about 150 pounds of honey. It is an awesome sight to see them now with the colony at peak strength and bees hanging out all over the front and sides of the hive washboarding. I'll try to get a picture this afternoon so you can see what can be done with these hives.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

sqkcrk said:


> The Jumbo Dadants that I worked in OH almost 40 years ago contained 12 frames. I believe the original Jumbo Dadants were 12 frames wide. But who's counting?


"JWG
Field Bee
A couple notes on the larger brood frames:

Historically in North America there were two large brood frame designs, the Dadant and the Langstroth Jumbo. There is no "Dadant Jumbo."

The standard Dadant brood frame (like the one used by Br. Adam) has the dimensions 17 5/8 * 11 1/4 inches. There are 11 of these in the Modified Dadant hive, and 12 in the Buckfast Dadant hive. The frames are spaced wider than Langstroth, on 1 1/2" centers (an important difference)."


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Fusion_power said:


> Six or seven combs will hold all the brood my best queens can produce. This permits me to run 2 queens in a horizontal system with 7 frames on each side. I have not tried running 2 queens during the flow yet.


Fusion_power - What are your thoughts on taking advantage of the combination of big frames and big brood box to overwinter two hives in one Dadant deep? At the end of Fall, consolidate two hives and their honey frames into one Dadant deep separated by a follower board for the Winter, and then move each hive into its own Dadant deep when the Spring buildup is underway.

Seems like overwintering each hive in a smaller space to better conserve heat, plus having the hives in one box to better share heat could be very efficient, resulting in a faster spring build-up . . . ?

Obviously, this would be very location dependant, but 4 frames at 9lbs of honey each would be 36lbs of honey, and 3 big frames for brood would be the right over-wintering numbers in many parts of the southern U.S. You'd just have to be sure to give them the room to expand once they start the Spring buildup.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

> Fusion_power - What are your thoughts on taking advantage of the combination of big frames and big brood box to overwinter two hives in one Dadant deep? At the end of Fall, consolidate two hives and their honey frames into one Dadant deep separated by a follower board for the Winter, and then move each hive into its own Dadant deep when the Spring buildup is underway.


 This is what I did last year. I wintered several colonies configured with 2 per box with a divider then moved them into separate boxes for the spring flow. If I were just managing colonies I wouldn't do it, but since I am raising queens and making up nucs now, I will get as many nucs as possible established with a good queen and combine them with 2 nucs per box for winter. This is the way I plan to manage all my colonies this winter!


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

odfrank said:


> "JWG
> Field Bee
> A couple notes on the larger brood frames:
> 
> ...


Well whataya know about that. I have at times said that everything I know to be true is wrong. So it's the Dadant and the Langstroth Jumbo? Huh. I will have to reprogram my data base/brain.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Picture as promised, a day late, but better late than never. We had near continuous rain the last 5 days. Today was sunny and temperatures were moderate. The picture on the right is the colony that produced 80 pounds of surplus honey. I used it to raise a round of Buckfast queens, then pulled nucs and gave them queen cells so I could get some Buckfast queens mated to drones from my mite resistant bees. It now has a mated and laying Buckfast queen and has been cut back to 7 frames of which 4 are full of honey.

This hive has one square deep for the brood chamber, one square deep filled with honey, and one shallow super filled with honey. I split it today with the queen and 7 frames moved to one side so the foragers will return to the parent hive. The parent hive has only sealed brood or brood that is way too old to raise a queen. Tomorrow I will give them a frame of cells from one of my breeder queens. The top shallow super is slam pack full of honey. The deep box beneath the shallow was slam pack full of honey. The bottom brood box has about 40 to 50 pounds of honey. Total weight of this hive is at least 250 pounds of which 200 is honey. It has been a LOT of years since I had a single hive produce 150 pounds of harvestable honey. The hive was full of bees from top to bottom, so many of them that moving the boxes around was difficult. It is hard to tell in this picture, but there are 10 bees per second landing and running into the hive. About half that many are leaving. The picture was taken at 5:00 pm central time with bees out foraging and bringing in pollen but not getting much nectar. The main flow is over but sourwood just started to bloom and is yielding a small amount of nectar this year.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

No handle cleats on 100+ lb boxes? And a double brood chamber? Now you have to extract jumbo frames?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

As I posted earlier, I have an extractor that will handle the large frames and I needed some drawn frames so I can make splits and raise queens for this winter. Yes, I pick up a 100+ pound box using the hand holds. I had to brace both feet but I did pick it up and it is full to the gunnels with honey.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

A Dadant deep for a honey super is too intimidating for me. Plus, I would have no way to extract the honey. 

When I am finally ready to start adding honey supers, it will be Dadant mediums for me.


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

This is posed as a serious question: What about using 6-frame Langstroth jumbo boxes configured so that two of them side-by-side form a square to match the brood box? Then frames are swappable and the weight is more tolerable to weaker backs. A body could even make that the basis for the brood box, making two-queen colonies very simple with a QE and rotating the next super pair by 90 degrees. It would seem to have all of the flexibility of the square box, and if you just _had_ to provide queens with 12 frames, you could stack paired 6-frame brood boxes and then add the supers. Once you get comb drawn as desired, the whole thing can be set up in single-layer brood boxes with <whatever> depth honey supers, even square ones. But 6-frame deeps would seem to be convenient and efficient, perhaps moreso than the square medium, and lighter.

Just trying to understand what downside would exist. Ian's triple 6-frame deep colony with dual 10-frame boxes supered is a similar application which he finds useful in certain situations.

Michael


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

The downside would be more complexity and more equipment to build. It is very easy to pull a few frames out of a box to lighten it up before moving. Place a spare box beside the hive being worked on and move frames into it to relocate where desired. Other than that, it would fit one of the management methods like Ian uses with side by side nucs and supers above an excluder. I achieve similar results by putting a divider in the middle of one of the square deeps and running 2 queens in each hive over winter.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Fusion_power said:


> Looks like there are 8 frames drawn and maybe 6 more that have not been touched yet. That is the stage where they show a distinct preference to work above the brood instead of to the side. I rotated outside combs with a frame of foundation to get them to keep expanding to the side.


Fusion_power:

As of my last inspection on 6/9/17 (i.e., 6 weeks after hiving the packages) it is looking like the sideways expansion of comb building onto new frames in the first (and, so far, only) Dadant deep in these new hives is starting to slow. I've been feeding these new packages all the syrup they will take, and they are almost done with their 4th gallon. I am starting to see some backfilling of the brood nest, which makes me a little nervous that I have over-done the feeding and am starting to encourage swarming. Also, they have now started to slow their consumption of syrup. I can't tell whether this is due to our main flow reducing their desire for the man-made stuff, or something else such as the bees' desire to build comb is waning. 

I've started to rotate inward the outer, un-built frames to encourage the bees to keep building sideways. Which leads to a question . . . 

1) In the next week or two, our main flow will end, and we will enter our extensive Summer dearth period. I am wondering if I should continue to feed syrup during this dearth to encourage the bees to continue building comb?

2) How much do you let the bees build out in that first Dadant deep before you add a second box? Do you follow the standard 80% rule for adding supers, or do you base it off some other criteria?

TIA!



The following photos are from one hive and are representative of all 4 new hives on the Dadant deep equipment. The packages were hived 6 weeks ago.

Looks like about 9 frames built out:




Zooming in will show mostly brood on this comb:




On this frame, lots of pollen and some nectar being filled into former brood cells:














.


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

Ya know, if someone had told me that in those square boxes, the bees only wanted to draw out 6 or 7 frames, tops, I might expect them to do what you're seeing. Have you tried putting in a follower board and rather than "hanging up" capped brood, "hang it sideways" on the other side of the follower? I found that my ten 12 7/8" frames in a "doubled medium" box were not totally used up by the bees, but they are working on them.

I can understand wanting to get the whole box drawn out, but I'm not certain of the rationale for it unless it is to have more such frames for expansion of the square part of the apiary next year.

Michael


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

First, don't sweat it, the bees know what they are doing. If they have 7 frames drawn with eggs and brood in most of them, then add a super if the flow will last that long. Feeding up to a point helps the bees build comb. After that, it slows down brood rearing because the bees focus on the feed instead of on building a bigger colony.

Seven of the Dadant frames are equivalent to nine Langstroth frames. That is about as much as most queens can produce in terms of brood. I would not worry if the bees don't build out all 14 frames. They will build them next year.


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## JeronimoJC (Jul 21, 2016)

+1 on trying the follower. I understand Bernhard keeps the brood nest restricted to 7 frames for ease of inspections and he believes there are added benefits (i.e. bees live longer)


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

JeronimoJC: I had thought Bernhard's "longer-lived bees" mechanism was to explain the population he observed with two-queen hives with moderate brood extent in either. His issue was that the adult bee population was too large when compared to the total brood population among two queens. Longevity was the only reason he could come up with to explain the discrepancy he perceived. I can't even guess.


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## JeronimoJC (Jul 21, 2016)

I would have to read his posts again to be sure. My recollection is that he observed larger bee populations when keeping the nest compacted and his conclusion was that bees must be living longer. I don't recall this being within the context of two-queen hives. Two-queen hives would logically have higher bee populations, regardless of bee lifespans.


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## Duncan151 (Aug 3, 2013)

I am running two of these hives, as of my last inspection they had drawn out 11 of the 14 frames. I spaced the last three into the brood nest, should be checking on them this afternoon.


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## shinbone (Jul 5, 2011)

Duncan151 said:


> . . . as of my last inspection they had drawn out 11 of the 14 frames.


Sounds like you are making good progress getting the frames filled out.


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## dpula2 (Jun 4, 2018)

so after a year of having experience with that dadant brood chamber what are your conclusions? Is such a big chamber easy to work than regular Lang, do you have less swarming, do bees winter better, is there more honey?


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## dpula2 (Jun 4, 2018)

I think the problem with deep Dadant frames might be also when you will try to move some frames into a nuc ( you will have to modify it) and also if you would want to move your beehive to another place. Of course you can always do it piece by piece and frame by frame.


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## DerTiefster (Oct 27, 2016)

That could be a problem at times, but what I was doing with my frames was setting them to the depth of two boxes. This means that I can move them into other boxes and slowly push them to the sides (as some do in transferring deep nuc frames into medium hardware). I put two of my double medium frames (13- inches) into two deep 5-frame boxes along with four deep frames and a deep feeder for the rest of the room. Might have done well to have filled the final deep frame slot with another deep frame, but I didn't. I did this with two splits. One made a queen and one didn't so I (successfully) installed a mated queen there.

The very deep frames aren't a deal-breaker for splits, and in my case were I to use medium boxes padded with filler boards, it would be zero problem. I hope (plan is too strong a word for me just now, given that beekeeping is presently a hobby application) to make a few dozens more frames of this size to set some colonies up for winter.

Michael


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