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Castellated Spacers for
frame spacing

Why are they disliked so much?

Sheet metal plates with rectangular cut-outs that can be used in beehives instead of frame runners to achieve an accurate spacing of frames.

I am a great advocate of castellated spacers and have used them for many years in both supers and brood boxes. In my opinion they are the best method of frame spacing, although not perfect. There are many people who simply don't know how to use them (if they ever have) and I think this is why they are discredited so much.

When time permits I will add a page explaining how to use them, especially in brood boxes.  Roger Patterson

All Notches are 22 mm wide and 9 mm deep.

The drawings are for B.S. National Hives.

The strips are 420 mm long, 28 mm wide with 1.5 mm fixing holes.

There is another, shorter style of castellated spacer that is made in 10's, 9's and 8's spacing to suit the nominally 10 frame WBC hive.

National Castellations

 

I usually drill 3 extra fixing holes as I find that with only 4... the strips tend to bow between the fixings, due to seasonal shrinkage and expansion.

The 12's and 13's are used in mating nucs in an attempt to reduce the possibility of drone production.

The 12's are also used in extra shallow (75 mm tall) ekes with top bars and starter strips... for cut comb production (and also to satisfy the bees need for comb building).

Please note: To the best of my knowledge the 12's and 13's are not commercially available and I have never seen them. They may have been made by Dave Cushman at Apex Enterprises. I will leave them here for reference.   Roger Patterson.

I use 25 mm  wire nails to fix the spacers to the boxes.

The material used is 28 SWG Zintec coated steel sheet and they can be purchased from B.J. Engineering.