>1. What is the practical disadvantage of having just 8 ? 

The disadvantage of 8 frames is the same as 9, only more so. It is hard to
space the frames correctly, and if you don't you will have extra combs built
between the frames. 

However! after a year or two of using the wider spacing, you will have a
buildup of propolis and wax on between the frame ends, which will help to
space the frames automatically. You have to see this, to believe it. 

If you run supers with 8 or 9 frames for a couple of seasons you will not
even be able to get 10 frames back into the box, without scraping down the
frame sides to bare wood. 

>2. What is the easiest way to do them by myself ? 

One way is to buy or make one of those rakes that you run down the frames to
space them, after you have set the super on the hive. Like I said, you will
only have to do this a couple of seasons, then the frames will space
themselves, provided you don't scrape off the wax and propolis that builds
up between them. 

One of my beekeeping friends showed me if you shake the super side by side,
the frames pretty nearly space themselves the way you want and then you just
adjust it a bit. Brother Adam had some kind of tack on the frame ends that
did the spacing but I don't know about that. 

The spacers that you put in the supers are OK, a bit expensive if you buy
hundreds, and they have the big disadvantage of preventing you from being
able to slide the frames over as a group. 

By the way, I knew one beekeeper who used 8 frames in his supers, over a ten
frame brood nest. He always used queen excluders. That way he could put any
old frames in the super (instead of culling the combs), some 100% drone
comb, and not worry much about the queen getting into them.

pb

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