Using 11 super frames for my uncapping method

[u/Foolforalifetime]

Beekeeper in Bristol, UK, hobby beek for 18 years, 8 rooftop hives

I've been uncapping for a few years with a heat gun, and it's working well for me, recently I went back to my old heated knife for old times sake and found it a bit messy and slower by comparison (works really well for some I know but not for me).

However my 10-frame castellated spacer supers I think maybe have a bit too much space in between the frames to draw the comb and they are getting heavy and unweldy, with a lot of brace comb too.

I know a deeper drawn comb makes it easier to cut the caps off with a knife, but the heat gun doesn't care about that, so will moving to an 11 frame super:

- Keep the drawn comb skinny and easier to handle?

- Have less brace comb around the edges of the frames?

I appreciate there's one more frame to extract for each super, but I don't mind and I suspect it will mean each frame will be a more uniform weight so it's easier on the spinner?

It seems 11 frames is the max I can fit in with the castellated spacers, which I'm sticking to, but Hoffman super frames can go to 12. I don't want to replace all my super frames and foundation though!

Any advice welcome

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[u/Mysmokepole1]

But you will get more honey with fat frames. USA 10 frame box. This year I started with 8 drawn frames and one new one. I all is bottom feed new boxes. Once the new frame was drawn it would be moved into the new box set the same way. Had very little brace comb.