In this solo video, Laurence Edwards of Black Mountain Honey explains why he regrets switching his apiary from the traditional UK National Deep brood boxes to larger 14x12 brood boxes. He begins by describing the original motivations for the change—need for faster spring buildup and the perceived cost‑saving of buying 100 14x12 boxes instead of 200 National Deep boxes. He then outlines the limited advantages of the 14x12 system (single‑box configuration, a small spring store buffer, and extra space for prolific colonies) before detailing a long list of disadvantages: higher upfront cost for boxes, frames and foundation; scarcity of cheap second‑quality frames; fragile frame lugs; difficult swarm control in a single box; cumbersome handling of larger frames; extraction challenges; and, most critically, the severe difficulty of producing nucleus colonies (nucs) and the low market demand for 14x12 nucs. Edwards contrasts this with the National Deep system, highlighting its UK‑wide standardisation, low cost, availability of cheap second‑quality frames, and ease of swarm control and nuc production, while acknowledging its drawbacks (need for double‑box setups for strong colonies and a slightly higher startup cost). He concludes that the upfront savings of buying fewer 14x12 boxes are outweighed by ongoing maintenance and operational inefficiencies, especially for beekeepers who split colonies and manage swarms. The video ends with a balanced recommendation for viewers to assess their own management style before choosing a hive type.
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In this video, I'm going to tell you why I regret moving from National to 14x12 brood boxes, give you a summary of the pros and cons of 14x12, and the pros and cons of National hives. Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. I've said to a lot of people that I'm going to do this video, and I've finally got around to doing it. So I'm going to tell you why I regret the move from National Deeps to 14x12 brood boxes, and I'm going to summarize the pros and cons of both of those hive types. So a little bit of background first. The reason that I moved over to 14x12 is a very, very simple reason. Firstly, I needed to expand, so I saw that as an opportunity to change the style and the size of brood box that I was using. At that moment in time, I was using National Deeps, And I had them in a double configuration. I was finding that it was taking the bees too long to build up in the spring to get a spring flow. All of my spring honey was getting wasted in that double brood configuration. That was part of the driver. Then the other driver was I wanted to buy 100 hives, and I thought if I went down the 14 by 12 route, I only need to buy 100 brood boxes, 14 by 12 brood boxes. If I'm going to go down the National Deep route, I need to buy 200 National Deep boxes. That was the main driver for me, 100 boxes versus 200 boxes. And in hindsight, it was a stupid, stupid decision for me, for my circumstances. And that's what I'm going to tell you about in this video. So first off, I'm going to talk to you about the advantages of 14 by 12 hives. So as far as I can see it, for me, there's only 2 main advantages to 14 by 12 hives. One is that you only need a single box configuration generally for most colonies within the UK. So you're saving a little bit of money, you're saving some time on inspection. The next one is that they backfill a little bit of that with some stores, so you get a little bit of a buffer in the spring if they're running out of stores, and you get a little bit of buffer when you come to taking off your honey. You don't need to feed them straight away, gives you a little bit more flexibility in timings. And then the final one is that for prolific colonies, you do get more space to get the bees up to size So that they can take advantage of the big flows. So now I'm going to move on to the multiple disadvantages as far as I can see it for 14 by 12. First one is the boxes are more expensive than a National Deep. So if you're running it on a single system, definitely more expensive. Second one is the frames and foundation are considerably more expensive. So the boxes are kind of proportionally more expensive, but the frames and foundation do seem to be significantly more expensive. Even worse than that is you don't get too many seconds frames either. So in national deeps, you can get really cheap seconds frames, whereas in 14x12, you're generally stuck with first quality frames if you're getting them in any sort of number. So the frames, the foundation, the boxes, and the beehives, everything is more expensive. Up next is swarm control, and without a doubt, swarm control in a single 14x12 system is definitely more difficult I like to use a demaray, which is effectively a double box system. Even if you don't start it off as a double box system, you end up later on in the year as a double box system. Swarm control in a single 14x12 brood box is quite difficult. You have to think ahead, you have to do something different. It's not as straightforward as when you've got a double national setup. The next one goes back to the frames again. They're definitely more difficult to handle. A lot of people don't like handling 14x12 frames. I'm kind of used to it now, but they are big. They are difficult to turn, difficult to flip around like that. And then the really annoying thing is that the frame lugs break so much more often. I've had it a couple of times just shaking boxes like that to get some bees out, and the lugs have broken because they've got so much weight over a single really simple joint. Very, very easy to break those frame lugs, as it is with most nationals, but especially with 14x12s. Next one is 14x12s are difficult to extract. So if you are going to go with a double system, You do want to take honey out if you're doing it in like a long hive or something like that. They're difficult to extract. My extractor does take them, takes them in a swing cage basket format, but it's slow. They're so easy to blow out in the extractor. I really wouldn't recommend extracting 14x12s if you can get away with it. Right, the final 2 reasons that I really don't like 14x12, and these are by far and away for me the biggest reasons that I don't like the system, is that it makes making up nucs So, so difficult. I can't believe I didn't see this one coming because back then I still sold a reasonable amount of nucs, nowhere near as many as I sell now, but I really struggle at the moment making up those nucs, and I've had to fall back into having National Deeps, double National Deeps, just as brood factories to make up the amount of National Deep nucs that I need. So I'm effectively back to running 2 different sizes of colony, and it could be a Langstroth and a National, it doesn't matter, they're completely distinct. It makes my life very, very difficult, and that is a big regret that I have. That's why I regret moving over to 14 by 12. And then the final one is that if you're making up 14 by 12 nukes, A, there's not anywhere near as big a demand in the UK for them, and they're a lot more expensive. But B, they take up such a significant amount of resource to make up a 14 by 12 nuke. It's about 50% bigger than the national deep nuke. So when you're splitting out your hives, very, very difficult to get anything more than, say, 2 nucs out of a full-size colony, whereas in a National Deep you can easily get 3 and build them up. So it's not effective or efficient in terms of the resources for making up those nucs. Right, so I'll talk about some of the advantages now of the National Deep system. And the first big advantage is that it is so standardized within the UK. I'll park the fact that it's not a very good design, it's not a very good system. But it is what everybody uses. It's the cheapest on the market. All of the hives are designed around a national deep system. It's standardized. You can get second quality frames. In terms of swarm control, it makes life so much easier because you've got the equipment readily available. And if you're running it on a double brood system, it is probably the easiest swarm control that you can ever do. So you're running it on a double brood, you can do a straightforward walkaway split. You can do any sort of swarm control method where you're going to split those colonies into 2. Just by moving those brood boxes apart. Then you can do vertical splits with the Demaray, and then you can reuse those top Demaray boxes because the National deep frames are so easy to extract in the majority of extractors. They're so much cheaper as well. The frames really are cheap. You can buy them in big stacks of 50. You can buy them as seconds because they're the most popular. You get a lot with defects in, and I find defect second frames no problem at all. That is all that I use. So it saves you a lot of money, and I should have probably sat down and done the sums on this before I said, right, I'm going to save myself buying an extra 100 National Deep boxes, because going forward it's costing me a lot more money to replace the foundation, replace the frames in the 14x12. All of that money I saved up front, in terms of the maintenance, I lose out quite significantly. And then the final one, and the biggest regret why I moved away from this system, is making up nucs is just the easiest thing in the world, and And you can bring it into your swarm control system. That's what I love about it so much, is that in the 14 by 12 system, I have to run that as a separate system, and I have to run that as separate swarm control management methods. And then I'm making up all of these nucs, and I have to build up national deep colonies and then split them out to make up lots of nucs. And under that combined system, I can do both at once. I can do my swarm control by taking out the frames, giving them the space at the right time of the year. And I'm making up the nucs at the same time. And that really is the big reason that I regret that move over, because it makes my life difficult, makes it so much more tricky to do the swarm management, but also to make up those nucs. So like I said before, there are a few negatives when it comes to National Deeps. One, that it's just not a very good format to start off with. The next one is, if you're going to run it as a double brood beehive, you do need prolific colonies. You need colonies that build up strong in order to fill that up. And then the final one is the startup cost of a little bit more in terms of buying an additional brood box. But you can see I've summarized all of that in about a minute, whereas the disadvantages of 14x12 probably took me about 5 minutes to summarize all of the things that I don't like for my operation. So there you go. I've summarized the pros and cons of National Deeps versus 14x12s and told you about why I regret my decision to move from National Deeps over to 14x12s. Now it's up to you to decide whether that's a good move for you. I know loads of people on 14 by 12, they absolutely love it, they don't make up any nucs, and then I think if you're not making up lots of nucs and you've got yourself a management method for swarm control, a lot of those issues do go away. But as always with beekeeping, you need to look at the facts, try things for yourself, and then try and work out what works best for you. I hope you enjoyed that video, I hope you found it useful. As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, And I'll see you next time. Bye.
