Sorting out supers this winter

[Zante]

I have bought my hives last year each with a super, but also inherited a lot of equipment from the owner of the land where my apiary is.

The two supers I bought have 9 frame castellations, while most of the old supers are 10 frame ones. A couple of them were without castellations, so I nailed some 9 frame ones on them.
There is no concept of self spacing frames here, so don't bother.

So, the current situation is:
I have some 10 frame and some 9 frame supers. With 2 hives I could have all 10 frame ones on one and all 9 frame ones on the other. Does it make a difference if I were to mix them up?

Is it worth the effort to rip out the 10 frame castellations and replace them with 9 frame ones or should I not bother?

 

[Curly green fingers]

I have bought my hives last year each with a super, but also inherited a lot of equipment from the owner of the land where my apiary is.

The two supers I bought have 9 frame castellations, while most of the old supers are 10 frame ones. A couple of them were without castellations, so I nailed some 9 frame ones on them.
There is no concept of self spacing frames here, so don't bother.

So, the current situation is:
I have some 10 frame and some 9 frame supers. With 2 hives I could have all 10 frame ones on one and all 9 frame ones on the other. Does it make a difference if I were to mix them up?

Is it worth the effort to rip out the 10 frame castellations and replace them with 9 frame ones or should I not bother?

I'm using 10 and 11 frames in supers . There's more brase comb between boxes on the ones that are mixed .

 

[enrico]

For brood frames you need a double bee space between the frames. These cells will be built the right depth for brood, but for supers the bees will keep building out to get the bees space so the cells are deeper. This allows, in theory, more honey. The plastic spacers I use come in two sizes, normal and wide which does the same. I can start with normal and add the wider spacers before they cap the honey to allow for more honey in each cell. I don't know for sure as I have never used castellations but it makes sense to me that that would be a possible reason for the different spacing
E

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just remember, the OP is in Italy, so doubtful he is on Nationals so ten frame or eight won't correspond to our spacings.

 

[Zante]

Just remember, the OP is in Italy, so doubtful he is on Nationals so ten frame or eight won't correspond to our spacings.

You're right, I probably should describe my equipment better: for starters it's dadant-blatt (not sure what difference there is with "normal" dadant)

The brood boxes are fine, I have them on 10 frames (9 frames + dummy). My bees still like to draw them nice and tight so there isn't much room between the frames, but it works.

The supers I bought with the hives came from the start with 9 frame castellations, which seems to be the standard here, since the commercial beekeeper I got my bees from has all 9 frame supers, and the wax is drawn fairly deep already, so no need to go to 8 here. (Also because I get plenty honey as it is now and I don't plan to sell it)

The 10 frame supers are inherited from the owner of the land who used to have bees before varroa (that's how far back it goes), except for 2 supers that didn't have castellations at all to which I nailed 9 frame ones.

Is there any issue with just grabbing a super and adding it to a hive without checking the number of frames?
Would it be better to separate them and have 9 frames on one hive and 10 frames on the other to keep them consistent?
Is it worth, this winter, to remove the 10 frame castellations and nail 9 frame ones to have them all the same?

I'm asking from a purely practical point of view. The bees have had mixed supers this season and the last and seem fairly happy either way, just a bit more brace comb between the boxes if they're mismatched as Curly green fingers mentioned.

 

[Roola]

There is no issue at all with having boxes with different numbers of frames. I tend to use 9 frames in a national shallow as I prefer them to draw them out more proudly which makes uncapping easier on the steam knife... However I have some legacy equipment in the form of wooden boxes with 10 castellations and have interspersed these with poly boxes containing 9 frames without issue. I'm always careful to place boxes at right angles to each other for each layer to reduce potential areas of contact for brace comb (if any).

 

[Zante]

There is no issue at all with having boxes with different numbers of frames. I tend to use 9 frames in a national shallow as I prefer them to draw them out more proudly which makes uncapping easier on the steam knife... However I have some legacy equipment in the form of wooden boxes with 10 castellations and have interspersed these with poly boxes containing 9 frames without issue. I'm always careful to place boxes at right angles to each other for each layer to reduce potential areas of contact for brace comb (if any).

Thank you, I thought that might be the case, but having a winter to get through without summer hobbies...

As for putting the boxes at right angles, yeah, I heard about this during my training in the UK, and was planning to do that myself. Unfoerunately these boxes are rectangular, so there's only one way around

 

[coffindodger]

"I'm always careful to place boxes at right angles to each other for each layer to reduce potential areas of contact for brace comb (if any)".

Anybody else do this? I was told during my courses to keep all boxes at same orientation - but then a lot of things I was taught as written in stone have turned out to be of dubious value.

 

[Roola]

Could it be they were referring to deeps? I keep the brood best alligned on double brood.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

"I'm always careful to place boxes at right angles to each other for each layer to reduce potential areas of contact for brace comb (if any)".

Anybody else do this?

No, pretty pointless.

 

[enrico]

"I'm always careful to place boxes at right angles to each other for each layer to reduce potential areas of contact for brace comb (if any)".

Anybody else do this? I was told during my courses to keep all boxes at same orientation - but then a lot of things I was taught as written in stone have turned out to be of dubious value.

It depends on the hive. I do it with really 'sticky' hives to stop me lifting the frames of the box below. If it works for you then do it. There are no hard and fast rules.
E