The Dadant Hives are used in france... they are certainly popular... I work with them for years, and never had a problem. They didn't get discontinued. There seems to be confusion in the states has DADANT is a STANDARD dimension for hives, but there is a company in the states that is called Dadant and that produice hives. Mr Dadant lived on the same time as Mr Langstroth, both had the same problem, and both arrived to the same conclusion : If you make it properly, you can have a mobile frames hive... (see also Mr Voirnot (France) and others(germany)) There are no Jumbo Dadant Hives ... Brother Adam travelled through europe, had seem the hives in France, and started to use them (1924)... Poeples in UK didn't beleive such big hive could be of any use... read his books. See also http://www.fundp.ac.be/~jvandyck/homage/ven.html In 5 years, he converted ALL his langstroth hives into Dadant, because he add BETTER results. To compare DADANT and LANGSTROTH Dadant brood frame: 44.5 * 28.5 cm= 12.68 dm2 Dadant supper frame: 44.5 - 14 cm = 6.23 dm2 Langsthroth frames : 42 * 20 cm = 8.40 dm2 A normal dadant hive will have one brood box and two suppers, depending 10 or 12 frame. Mine are 12 frames... sizes are in square dm (inside, wood not included in surface mesures) frameDadant 10 dadant 12framelangstroth brood12,7126,8152,28,484,0 supper6,262,374,88,484,0 supper6,262,374,88,484,0 total251,4301,7252,0 Bernard. >At 12:00 AM 4/20/00 -0400, you wrote: >>I've only kept bees for five years so don't know anything about >>Jumbo Dadant Hives. Reading about them they seem like they would be easier >>to work and most beekeepers would only need one box for a brood chamber. >>Brother Adam used these at Buckfast Abbey. >> Why did they get discontinued? Since no one responded to your question, I will. The frames were too big. A regular sized frame can hold 5 or 6 pounds of honey and if it is not well built, it will break. The bottom bar may pull off or the ears of the frames may snap. This is especially a problem if the frames are old. I have no idea how working the jumbo hives would be, but I imagine the frames would be very awkward to remove. . - Bernard Heymans . " ` Mailto: [log in to unmask] . " ` . _- -_`-_|'\ /` . _/ / / -' `~()() . \_\ _ /\-._/\/ . / | | . '` ^ ^ . .///////////////// . In a world without fences and borders, why do we need gates and windows?