One interesting aspect of beekeeping in Greece is that almost everyone uses 10 frame Langstroth deeps for brood and honey. It certainly keeps the price down. However, full boxes of too heavy for me so I cut the brood boxes down using a circular saw which gave me a shallow super and eke from each box. If you see Greek beekeepers harvesting honey you will most likely see them scavenging around in maybe three boxes, the honey frames in all stages of completion. Shallow frames tend to be filled more quickly thus allowing full supers to be removed.
Some renegades use 9 frame standard Langstroths - some work was done some time ago in Thessaloniki and came to the conclusion that the bees did just as well [if not slightly better] as in these as ten frame hives, so why carry the extra weight?
Many beekeepers do not use queen excluders as they are afraid that compressing the bees will lead to swarming.
John Phipps
Sent from my ASUS Pad
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