As far as I am aware there were no frames or fittings inside the old fashioned hives known as Skeps, the bees once inside stayed because their Queen was in there and they would build comb on any surface that they chose. The combs whether in frames in modern hives or freehand will all encompass the same dimensions for the cells built. The combs will always be parallel to each other and the same set distance apart so that the bees can service the comb, the distance is commonly referred to as bee space. Dave W

And you had to more or less destroy the skeps to get at the honey.

Usually the skeps were weighed and only the heavy skeps were destroyed, because they were the ones containing most honey. The lighter ones were allowed to overwinter for the next season.

So instead of the survival of the fittest, you had the survival of the weakest. The result was that the old English bee wasn't very good at producing honey. Hence the mass importation of bees from Italy and other Med countries in the more recent past and indeed they are still imported.

I am not to keen on the newcomers as they tend to be large and aggressive. I prefer the older type which is smaller by comparison. It was thought that the old English bee was more or less extinct until they were found in trees that were part of an old undisturbed wood.

I once kept a skep, but gave up, as swarming was impossible to control.

Andrew.

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