6F Dadant Blatt nuc

01 · 47, NOT 48

There are two Dadants, and a centimetre apart

Two formats share the name: Dadant Blatt, with a 47 cm top bar, standard in France and Italy, and Dadant US at 48 cm, which is the usual one in Spain. This is the 47. A centimetre sounds like nothing until you try to hang the frame: the 48 will not sit on the rebates. If you are combining it with gear you already own, measure the top bar before ordering.

02 · WHAT SETS THE SPACING

The frames are straight, and the box supplies the rack

This is what people ask about most on this page, so plainly: the body carries spacer racks and the six frames it includes are straight. That is the pair that works together — a straight frame does not space itself, the distance comes from the rack in the box. It is the alternative to the Hoffman frame, which has a widened side and spaces itself with no rack needed. Neither is better: what you should not do is mix the two across one apiary.

03 · WHAT IT IS FOR

Making an artificial swarm, or housing one you have just caught

The typical use is to take an artificial swarm off a strong colony living in a 10-frame Dadant: you get ahead of swarming instead of suffering it, and you expand the apiary in the process. It also serves to bring on a swarm you have just collected until it is strong enough to move into a hive. The compact size helps in both: you read it at a glance, and a young colony holds its temperature better in a small volume than lost inside a ten-frame body.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is timber and weighs about 9 kg, more than a polystyrene nuc of the same format. That is the trade-off and also the point: a timber wall insulates by thickness and stands up to the hive tool and the scraping season after season, where foam takes a mark. All you add is Blatt foundation and the bees.