> I was looking for opinions about using 8 frame hives.

I have kept ten frame hives for forty years. I tried some eight framers a few years back and found them to have little to recommend. The hives become taller quicker, and there is more fussing since there are more boxes for the same number of frames. 

Back in the day, I used only deep frames, but have been using 6 5/8" mediums for honey supers for quite a while now. I think the ideal unit is two deeps and then mediums above that. A lot of folks are using all mediums these days because of the weight issue.

By the way, when I say ten frame -- it's really only nine. And in the honey supers we use eight frames in a ten frame box. Among commercial beekeepers it is quite common to see one deep, a queen excluder, and then a grab bag of supers above that. I don't use excluders, preferring to let the bees manage the hive organization. 

As far as whether the bees do better in one hive or another, that's hard to say, but the fact that the ten frame hive is by far the most common in this country, that seems to indicate that it is well suited to both the bees and their keepers.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html