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Where this comes from. The dimensions are the ones published in the old Ministry of Agriculture advisory leaflets, which the Scottish Beekeepers’ Association reproduces as its technical data sheets. The rest is the National Bee Unit, and the makers’ own pages where a hive is one company’s product. Sources at the foot of the page.
The short answer
Buy a National unless you have a specific reason not to. It is the most popular hive in Britain, every supplier stocks it, and nucleus colonies are usually sold on its frames. 1
The rest of this page is for when you want to know why, or when you have inherited something else, or when you are deciding whether to move.
Was there ever a standard?
Yes. BS 1300, “Beehives, frames and wax foundation”, first issued in 1946 and revised in 1960. It specified the WBC, and then the National and the Smith. 2 4 It never covered the Commercial, the Langstroth or the Dadant.
BSI’s catalogue now shows BS 1300 as withdrawn, and gives no date for that. 7 We have not read the standard itself.
This matters in one practical way. People still say “British Standard frame” and mean something definite by it, but there is no longer a standard forcing makers to agree. Treat “should fit” as the honest phrase, not “will fit”.
The National
Boxes are 460 mm square, walls 19 mm. A brood box is 225 mm deep and a shallow super 149 mm. It takes up to eleven British Standard frames, which have long lugs of 38 mm at each end. 2
Three things made it win. The lugs are long enough to grip properly. The box is square, so you can run the frames either way round. And it was the one with a free government leaflet telling anyone with a saw how to build it, which is how a standard becomes a habit.
It is a bottom bee space hive as standard, and converting to top bee space is an old and documented modification. Some UK makers now sell the boxes either way, so it is worth knowing which you have before you mix boxes.
A single National brood box holds roughly 35 litres of comb. That is enough for a queen that is not especially prolific, and not enough for one that is. The usual answers are a deeper 14 x 12 box, or running two brood boxes, or brood and a half. The 14 x 12 frame is older than BS 1300 but was never part of it, and makers differ on the box depth by a few millimetres.
The WBC
The one people picture when they picture a beehive: white, tapered, double walled. Inner boxes sit inside outer lifts.
The inner boxes take the same British Standard frames as a National, which is why the job feels familiar. They are not National boxes. The brood chamber holds ten frames, not eleven, and the inner walls are only 11 mm thick. 4 Floors, lifts and roof are its own.
It is slower to open, because the lifts come off first and have to go somewhere they will not blow over. In exchange the double wall gives the colony a warmer, drier box, and it looks the part in a garden.
From our own apiary. We run one WBC alongside Nationals. The honest verdict after several seasons is that the bees do well in it and the beekeeping is slower. If you want one, have one. Just do not buy a whole apiary of them and then discover how long an inspection round takes.
The Smith
Almost a Scottish hive. Designed by W. Smith of Innerleithen, and specified in BS 1300 alongside the National. 3
It uses British Standard frames in every respect except the lugs, which are cut down to 19 mm. That makes a compact box and a frame you cannot get a good grip on. Push-on metal ends do not suit it, so Hoffman frames or screw-eye spacers are what you want.
It is a top bee space hive, which is the opposite of the National. Mixing the two is the classic way to get brace comb everywhere.
The Commercial
Same 460 mm footprint feel as a National, slightly larger box, and a much bigger frame: short lugs, deep comb, eleven to a box. It gives a good deal more brood room than a National in the same floor space, which suits a prolific queen.
It was never in BS 1300, so what you get depends on the maker. The frames are the catch. Short lugs are harder to handle, and the deep comb is heavy and floppy when new.
Langstroth and Dadant
The world’s commercial standards, and a minority choice in Britain. The Ministry was blunt about the problem: there is no recognised standard for either, and box dimensions vary with the source and the maker. 5
A British Langstroth box is 508 by 413 mm and takes ten frames. Its shallow super is 146 mm, which is fractionally less than a National shallow, so do not assume a Langstroth super is the deeper box. American mediums and deeps are bigger, and that is where the weight surprises people.
A Modified Dadant brood box is bigger again, at 508 by 470 by 298 mm with eleven frames. It is a lot of brood box for most British colonies.
Both take short lugged frames. If you buy either, buy the frames from the same place as the boxes at least once, so you know what fits.
Top bar hives
A top bar hive gives the bees only a bar to build down from, with no sides or bottom to the frame. A horizontal one is long and low and is worked bar by bar, at a height that suits somebody sitting down. The NBU puts that forward as a real option for beekeepers with limited mobility. 1
Two honest warnings, both the NBU’s: they need to be well insulated, and managing one well takes skill. It is not the easy option it looks like.
Flow supers
Flow is a super, not a hive standard. The brood box below stays a conventional one, and Flow describes its own system as a way of taking honey out of a Langstroth style hive. 6
If you keep bees on Nationals, read Flow’s own page on this before you buy. It says a seven frame Classic super only just covers the ends of a National and needs wooden gap fillers of about 60 mm each side. Eight Flow Frames can be made to fit by removing pairs of comb blades and rebinding them, and Flow states that modifying the frames voids the warranty.
Flow Hive is a brand, owned by the Australian company Beeinventive. It is not a generic word for a hive with a tap.
Taking a Flow super off is its own job, and Getting the bees out of the supers covers it.
Wood or poly
The NBU treats this as personal preference. Polystyrene is lighter, sheds water and insulates better. Wood is natural and more sustainable. Poly hives have been in use in Europe for decades and are popular here. 1
Poly needs a little more care in handling, because you can crush it, and it wants painting or coating on the outside.
A National is not always a National
This is the trap worth knowing before you spend money. One UK maker sells a standard National poly brood box at 460 mm that mixes with wooden National kit, and also a twelve frame “National” poly box at 490 mm which its own product page says is compatible only with the rest of that twelve frame system. 8
Nobody is doing anything wrong there. It is simply that with the standard withdrawn, the word National on a box is a description rather than a promise. Check the millimetres.
The rule that matters more than the choice
Use one type of hive, so that the parts interchange. That is our own rule rather than published guidance, and it is worth more than picking the theoretically best hive. Every box, floor, crown board and roof you own should fit every other one. The National Bee Unit asks you to take advice before choosing, and does not tell you to standardise. 1
One more legal point, because people ask. The Bee Diseases and Pests Control Order does not require any particular hive, or even movable frames. 9 Our own view is that bees are better kept in movable frame hives anyway, and the reason is practical rather than legal: a hive you cannot take frames out of is a hive nobody can check for foulbrood, yourself included. Registering on BeeBase explains why that matters.
The short version
- National unless you have a reason. Eleven long lug frames, 460 mm square.
- WBC takes the same frames but only ten, and is not a National inside.
- Smith is top bee space with short lugs. Do not mix it with Nationals.
- Commercial for more brood room in the same footprint.
- Langstroth and Dadant have no agreed standard, so buy boxes and frames together.
- Flow is a super. Check the fit before you buy for a National.
- Standardise on one type. That matters more than which type.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Rules change - always check the current guidance on GOV.UK before relying on it.