I still think the idea we bounced around 8ish months ago about tacking together a "deep+medium" ~15 inch frame is worth a go, and I'm waiting the results of your trial. :) To my imagination, one single brood box is ideal. Use a hand cart or helper in the (for me rare) need to move it.
Oh - right ...
I'm well-chuffed (Brit slang for pleased) to hear that there's at least one person 'out there' taking an interest in some of my meanderings ... :)
If you check out the Brother Adam video in another thread, you'll see that BA favoured the large-frame Dadant system to achieve truly outstanding results. Now although my 14"x14" test frame size is a tad smaller than the Dadant, I was also to discover (NB. with just the one test colony, in this particular locality, and during a 2 year period) that the larger/deeper frame size did indeed work extremely well.
But - having discovered this, I was then faced with a dilemma (or rather, a trilemma !): whether to adopt this unique 14"x14" quasi-'British National' frame size; stick with the UK industry standard 14"x12"; or move over entirely to Jumbo Langstroths.
Being a 'serious hobbyist' and not a commercial honey-farmer, the most pragmatic course of action was to adopt the 14"x12" format for all my resident working colonies (retaining a small number on the smaller 'Deep National' (standard 14"x9") frames from which to seed nucs for sale), and so cut-down the 14"x14" test frames to the 12" size.
Thus far I've reduced about half of them to this size, and will be tackling the others as and when they're removed from the experimental box. I took some photographs of a couple of typical combs before butchering them - just in case anyone might be interested:
What you'll notice in both pics is that there are mid-comb 'holes' (exposing the support skewers) at around the 10-11" depth mark. These holes mark the depth to which comb was drawn-out during the first year. With hindsight I should have installed a much stronger colony to draw-out such large foundationless combs - but I didn't ... The remaining few inches were drawn-out the following spring, just as soon as it became warm enough.
I've chosen typical combs, rather than 'the best' - and as you can see, these combs are more than just a little 'untidy', lacking the uniformity usually seen on smaller foundationless frames or (of course) when using foundation.
Conclusion: On the strength of this one short experiment, can I recommend using such deep frames ? Well - from the bees' point-of-view, certainly - they appear to thrive on this large comb format. From a beekeeping point-of-view however, there
are logistical issues to be considered - but if these can be accommodated, then the Dadant System could prove ideal.
LJ