The WBC (William Broughton Carr) is what most people would recognise as a beehive, it consists of an inner set of boxes, brood chamber and supers as with most other hives, but it also has an additional outer skin (lifts), that give it weather protection and the classic ‘pagoda’ look most people will picture when they think of a beehive.
The WBC hive will take 10 Frames in each box and can be used with standard or deep (14″x12″) brood frames. A regular depth brood box can be made deeper with an “Eke” to allow the use of the bigger deeper frames. The benefits of the WBC are increased protection against the weather and woodpeckers, ; it comes with its own legs and so will not need an additional stand and it is probably the most aesthetically pleasing of all.
The downsides of this hive are the additional costs to purchase due to the extra wood and labour involved in manufacture, that it takes fewer frames than other hives and the extra labour involved when opening the hive, due to the additional skin that needs to be removed.
This hive uses frames 14″wide x 8 1/2″deep or 14″wide x 12″deep for brood and 14″wide x 5 1/2″deep for Supers