Eight Frame Medium Depth Hive Box

  The Eight Frame Medium hive body. A stack of these with foundationless frames inside makes a fine beehive. You can build or buy thses boxes. The dimensions are industry standard and all big beekeeper supply companies stocks them. If you buy them they will be shipped unassembled with a paper bag of nails included. Pound in the nails and seal the wood with your favorite sealer. Most people seal with a coat of primer and a couple coats of Exterior paint. Leave the interior of the boxes unpainted. 

  If you're just getting started I'd recommend acquiring a minimum of 3 boxes for each colony you plan to start with. Initially the colony will need only one box. When they grow and have comb drawn on all frames you can add another box on top. If the colony is really booming and you need to add a thrid box that should trigger you to order more boxes ASAP. My booming colonies need at least six boxes or more. A medium strength colony will have around four. A new or weak colony needs only one or two boxes. 

A random hive in our apiary. You can see we make our boxes and have a few styles of handholds we've tried. 

The bottom box in this photo is what we like to use now. 

We pulled out one foundationless frame to give an idea of what a box complete with frames looks like. 

If you count you'll notice there are 9 frames. That's normal with narrow foundationless frames.