The WBC hive with its fancy lifts and roof is very picturesque, as
is the Glen hive , or other similar designs.  Serviceable?  Well...maybe.
Cheap? Nope.  Efficient?  Certainly not.  I did read somewhere that, earlier
in this century, there were one or two "commercial" operations in Britain
that used WBC's. It must have been a real challenge trucking loads of them
to the orchards, or off to the heather-moors!
 
Glyn Davies recently mentioned that some folks (UK) had ended up wishing
they had started with the Langstroth.  I wondered why.  I mean, the
Langstroth isn't a whole lot bigger than the B.S. frame.  Now, if you go to
the Dadant, like Harry Riches or Oliver Field (following after Manley's
example), then you have made a real jump. A good queen can lay a nice
compact, full pattern on
them. All tidy in one box.
 
It would seem that, to many overseas beekeepers,
the big advantage of the "standard" USA Langstroth is the
interchangeability of the brood and super frames, all through the hive.  In
other words,
that the brood and honey combs are all one uniform size (9 1/4" frames).
This is nice and efficient, and it was the way most large American apiaries
looked during much of this century.  Even here in upstate NY, where
buckwheat honey was a major crop up until the 1940's/50's,the usual big
apiaries consisted of
solely Langstroth  9 5/8" deep chambers.
 
Nowadays, it's a different story.  Commonly we find that beekeepers are using 2
Langstroth deeps for brood and wintering, and for the crop, the hives are
supered with 6 5/8" (Dadant depth, or "3/4") "medium" honey supers.
 
A few folks super with the deep chambers only, but most consider them too
heavy when full, and awkward.  Occasionally, too, you'll see 5 11/16"
(Langstroth shallow) supers, but it makes more sense to use the medium 6
5/8" depth which holds appreciably more, but is still easy enough to handle
when full.
 
So,with the Langstroth, we STILL end up with 18-20 total
brood chamber frames.  And we still have to do things like mess around with the
brood boxes, swapping them in the spring to get the queen laying where we
want her.
 
American beekeepers, then (depending where you go) are not uniformly using
the standard Langstroth deep throughout the hive, for brood AND surplus.
It would be cheaper and easier to just have one frame size, but the crops
aren't as
huge as they were many years ago, and a full deep is quite a load to carry!
I often end up with a few full ones every year  (usually
newly-drawn foundation combs which are extracted, and put into brood service
the next season).  A full deep super could hurt you, so a good grip is crucial.
 
I have often wished that the Dadant or Jumbo Langstroth (10 Dadant-depth
brood frames) had  become the standard here, over the years.  They did
enjoy some brief popularity in decades past.  They have not been offered by
US suppliers for many years.  The classic argument is that they are too
heavy      ( -- compared to what, though?)
 
Compared to a double-deep langstroth?? I think not.  One person cannot
safely lift and carry a double-deep langstroth,the shape is all wrong --
but most folks COULD lift an entire colony in a Dadant/Jumbo; AND not have
to staple everything together to do it.  About the only big disadvantage to the
large brood combs is that the bees tend to chew away the bottom portion.
There are ways of preventing or fixing this, tho.  (BTW, Cornell University
has an apiary, and they still have a few Jumbo's in use; but
they just treat them like regular Langstroth brood bodies and double them
up.)
 
The Manley extracting frame is to me an ideal design for ... well,
extracting honey!  Here in the U.S. we are stuck with the factory-style
Hoffman frame in both the broods and supers.  They are completely identical
except for the different depths.  This is a problem -- the bottom bars are
too narrow and
you don't get a nice surface along which to guide the uncapping knife. The
narrow bottoms also accumulate a lot of burr/brace comb. For surplus,
the super frames must be spaced out by hand, or with metal spacers -- more
work.  Manley's extracting frames had wide top *and* bottom bars, and
self-spacing, straight wide end-bars.  Uniform, even combs, easy to uncap,
no spacing required.
 
Over all, I 'm convinced Manley had the right idea with the Mod. Dadant hive and
special super frame.  I think bee management would be considerably
simplified  if they had become more common here "in the colonies".
 But U.S. beekeepers (or was it the suppliers) opted for the Langstroth, so
here we are,
 running too-prolific bees on too-small/wrong shaped brood combs.
 For surplus, we super with shallow frames, which are patterned exactly
after the brood frames, and don't function ideally for extracting purposes.
...................
TO add to the melee, quite a few western U.S. outfits are switching over to
a "western" size frame for BOTH brood and honey chambers.  Another size!
This one is a 7 5/8" box with 7 1/4" frames.  Hey, why not?  Actually I
think this came about because good wide boards are becoming much too
expensive or hard to secure...
 
Oh well. Mix 'em all up.  Sometimes you just have to use what you can
get,or already have (!) --  and after all, the bees won't complain.
 
  Best regards to all,  Joel Govostes,
        Freeville, NY