On 31 May 2014, at 16:24, charles Linder  quoted: >"...but the basic measurements for the British hive are: Brood box 18 1/8" square, 8 7/8" deep.  Supers are 5 7/8" deep"<

British beekeeping is not as uniform as that suggests. 

The British frames sizes standardised by the newly formed British Beekeepers Association in the 1880's or thereabouts as all sorts of hives were being designed based on the bee-space principle of Langstroth, leading to a plethora of frame sizes. 

The size of the brood box in most used hive in Britain, the Modified National, was suited to the black bees of that time but became too small for the German hybrids that took over in the 1920's when the blacks were almost wiped out by Isle of Wight disease. The suitability of imported bees sank further when yellow Italian bees were imported because they were supposedly docile and certainly very pretty. 

As Peter  has said, some beekeepers believe the blacks are best suited to UK conditions and small numbers of beekeepers are struggling to breed out the yellow and brown genes. It is however impossible for most beekeepers as with open mating in an area stocked with hybrids any gains are soon lost. 

A single standard brood box is too small for our hybrids and British beekeeping cursed with a variety of compromise systems - 'brood and a half' being most common, which means searching on occasion for the queen on 22 frames. 

A 14ins  x 12 ins deep frame was introduced around 1900 , providing the same area on each frame as a standard and a shallow combined. The combs inside a Deep National brood box are about 13ins wide by 11ins deep, so the bees can make a spherical nest about 9ins diameter, the ideal shape for retaining heat.  Brood is usually only on 7 to 8 frames, making brood nest management much easier. That is as close to a cube as we generally get.

Such brood boxes are almost impossible to lift when making splits, so a second hive generally has to be used - very uneconomically.   I myself therefore promote a double length hive taking 14x12 frames, as that can hold a colony on up to 15 frames only needing a single layer of supers to hold over a 100 lbs of honey, partly on deep frames front and back of the brood, partly in the supers.  This harks back to the 'combination principle popular in the late 1800's, until beekeeping concentrated on moving hives for pollination.   Long Deep hives are obviously too clumsy for regular migration - but very few of the hobbyists who dominate British beekeeping go to the labour of humping hives about.  Long deep hives of sorts were still the traditional hive all over Russia and Eastern Europe until recently on mixed farms I understand - maybe still are - but superseded by Langstroths for specialised  bee-farming. 

A deep double length hive is easily split with a Divider board to two equal compartments when the colony is split for swarm control, and is easily re-combined just by removing the board when the 'swarm' has built a new brood nest and the 'parent' has raised a new queen.  Or a nucleus hive can be created by inserting the divider 3/4 down the hive, in which either to isolate the old queen or to incubate a queen cell. 

As the work making a box is all in the corners, a double cube hive is cheaper than two separate hives.  My supers are made half length, taking 5 frames at wide spacing, so the heaviest lift when operating the hive is reduced to individual frames at 8lbs max plus supers at 15 lbs max - helpful for older beekeepers! (Like me). 

A few US beekeepers have bought the plans over the last 35 years - does anyone know if the 'combination' principle has/is being tried in US?  (The major problem would be that the Langstroth frames are too wide and not deep enough and I doubt many would wish to import UK frames and foundation). 

Robin 
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