How Many Frames for Honey? 8,9,10?

[FrogPond]

OK, I am about to put up my first honey supers and I want to know how many frames people use for honey. I have read about people using 9 and even 8, spacing them evenly. What is your process?

I am using Langstroth hives with two deeps (10 frames) for brood. I am planning to use all mediums above the two deep brood chambers. I am using foundation in the frames in the honey supers, utilizing the little "pins" on the sides and no wire. I hope to chunk a little honey this fall, even though I started my hives just this spring.

So - how about it?  :?:  How many frames do you recommend for in the honey supers?

Thanks in advance!

[thegolfpsycho]

I recommend 10 frames until you have drawn comb.  I'm sure others have been successful starting with 9.  Maybe even 8.  But I have "standardized" it for me.  Foundation is always 10 frames.

[Miss Chick-a-BEE]

You really need to start with 10 until they start building foundation. Otherwise they build it too uneven and build bridge comb. After they have built up the foundation you can take out a frame, then maybe let them build a little more and go down to 8 frames. The idea of less frames is so they build deeper cells, making the de-capping process easier. I haven't found the extra work of watching the cell building process worth it to do all this. I go with all the frames that fit in my home-made boxes.... 11.

Beth

[TwT]

10 for foundation, after they have the foundation drawn I go with 9 frames, reason why, it is drawn out farther and so easy to cut the cappings off. my 2 cents

[Phoenix]

I hope to chunk a little honey this fall

Since nobody has addressed this issue for you, I will offer some advice.  First of all, don't try to cut comb from standard wax foundation, it is too thick and not meant for this purpose.  If you want cut comb, you should be sure to order specific foundation meant to be cut, most is labeled as "thin surplus" for cut comb.  Or you can put in foundationless frames to harvest cut comb from.

I would also like to address your foundation configuration.  If you are using wax foundation, without wiring, and just using support pins on the side you will have to be very careful when extracting, as these frames will be fragile and the weight of the honey will blow out the comb due to the centrifigal force of your typical extractor.  Run your extractor very slow in order to prevent a disaster.  It will also take a while at slower speeds to get all the honey out.