> A good point and I doubt there are many whose livelihoods depend on > pollination contracts would run 9 in the brood chambers. But I think > the advantages of 9 frames for a hobbyist outweigh the disadvantages. I > would also question you assertion that a 10% reduction in comb area in > the brood nest equates to a 10% reduction in brood area. Sometimes > arithmetic is not so simple. Interesting discussion. I think you are right about the math not being simple. A hive of bees seems to me to be a self-optimizing system. We randomly run both 10 and 9 frame spacing in our brood chambers and have for many years. We inherited some nine frame spaced hives and never changed them over to ten. We have never been able to notice any difference in hive strength or wintering success between the two systems. Fundamentally, bees do not actually need our hives or care about our dimensions. I'm told they did just fine for millennia without them. These days people take the dimensions and restrictions of manufactured hives and foundation for granted -- almost like gospel, but standard spacing between frames was one of those things that was decided back when moveable frame hives came in to existence a century ago. At that time, people were not as unanimous about such things as they are today. There were many types of bees kept in different environments and methods, and the design decisions that were made by each manufacturer were based on his local observations, logic, public beliefs and desires of the time, and (often) a measure of speculation and marketing hype. Each manufacturer had to decide on the spacing between frames, the ideal size of cells in foundation, the designs, volumes and shapes of the boxes and frames -- and the dimensions necessary to achieve those volumes. Entrance size and orientation and excluder wire spacing were also things that had to be established. Selling equipment is a manufacturers goal. To the extent that the requirements behind this goal coincide with the needs of bees and beekeepers, the modern hive is a success for manufacturers, beekeepers, and bees. Nonetheless we must remember that a manufacturer does not wish to sell 10% fewer frames or 10% less foundation, so closer spacing and more frames is a good thing for him. For convenience and simplicity, a one-size-fits-all approach has been used in hives, mating nucs being an exception, but different manufacturers came to very different conclusions and designed very different hives. Over time there has been a convergence towards a standard, but there are still incompatibilities between suppliers. When we consider our hives, we must remember that some of the original assumptions may have been wrong, circumstances have changed, and that there is certainly nothing wrong with taking another look at every aspect of hive design and use in light of this knowledge and in consideration of what our own bees show us when we work with them. There is no reason to believe that our standard hive is anything other than a compromise -- and maybe a poor one in our personal situation. Keeping that in mind, another important thing to remember is that in a one- size-fits-all approach, the tendency is to be on the generous side with some dimensions and too small in others. Each choice depends on whether being too generous or too skimpy with that particular parameter would have the more undesirable effect. Since everything is a compromise, the concern is that the hive must work in all circumstances and that is more important to a manufacturer than it's being ideal in any particular application or circumstance. Examples: Excluders: Too wide a spacing and they won't exclude. Too narrow and bees cannot get through. Bees vary in size. Hmmmm. Entrances: Too small and the hive overheats. Too large has fewer obvious problems. Universally, entrances are made on the generous side. Foundation: Too small and many bees won't accept it. Bees that do will be smaller. Small cells pack more bees in less space. That can be a good or bad depending on circumstances and the beliefs of the people involved. Too large and the cluster density drops. Bees become marginally larger. Too large and worker comb becomes confused with drone comb. Etc. Frame spacing: Bees naturally vary comb spacing. In man-made hives, if the combs are too close, brood often cannot be raised in all cells and flatness of the central foundation becomes critical. Closer spacing sells more equipment more often. If the combs are spaced wider, then the flatness of the brood combs is less critical, bees have more room between combs, older, warped combs are not a problem, fewer frames are required, there is less handling, ventilation may be improved, but a given cluster can cover fewer combs. As I recall, Dadant chose a wider spacing than Root. Root's spacing is what most call ten frame spacing. Dadant was closer to what we call nine. As I recall, anyhow. I could go on, but I think this points out that modern manufactured hives are strictly an artificial construct for the convenience of humans. Left to their own, bees will often build hives with curved combs. Comb spacing will vary. Cells will also vary in size. And they will do just fine. Although the hives we use may actually be ideal for some bees under some circumstances, they are not necessarily what the bees would choose in all cases nor are they 'right' or 'wrong'. I don't think comb spacing -- within reasonable limits -- is very critical. allen allen http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/