Not to oppose Gray Goose's point, but from the view of, "What is ideal for the bees?" it is clear that hive boxes larger than the standard U.S. "Langstroth" hive have distinct advantages when combined with 5.1mm or 4.9mm cell sized foundation mounted on narrow frames about 1.240 inches wide.
The Spring bee night cluster can cover more babies on smaller cells and narrower frames, bringing the population up a few weeks faster than bees in standard 5.4mm foundation mounted on 1.375" wide frames. You get more bees earlier, just in time for almond pollination
and take better advantage of the few weeks of the main Spring nectar / pollen flow.
One such hive is the Modified Square Jumbo Dadant ("MSJD" for short) beehive. The inside dimensions are 18-3/8" x 18-3/8" x 11-11/16ths inches deep (Mine are actually 12.5 inches deep with 7/8-inch frame rebates so as to never crush a queen). It also has an advantage being square - you can place the honey frames at 90 degrees to the brood frames, giving the bees easy access to any honey frame. A fellow in Europe has been using similar hives for about 15 years and he reverses the honey boxes ("endo") every time he works the colony so that the honey fills out evenly.
14 of the narrow 1.240"-wide frames fit inside the brood box (you can use 12 standard honey frames - Illinois, shallows, or comb frames - in the supers). I place a partition in the brood box in order to start the season with 2 colonies. At about 4 to 4-1/2 frames of bees. I move the smaller colony into it's own MSJD brood box and square super. You do need to make up some square queen excluders or mount a standard one on a board to fit the MSJD hive boxes. I also make partitioned screened bottom boards with 2 openings on opposite corners, and half & half inner candy board covers, a square Don the Fat Bee Man-type version of the Miller hive top feeder, and a square quilt box. Of course, I just had to make them into observer hives with double-pane windows!
The 11-1/4" deep brood frames allow the best queens to develop an extremely healthy brood nest with pollen and honey right there on the frame where they need it.
Admittedly, I am a bit larger 5'-2", and these 100 lbs brood boxes can be hefty, but I lift them onto my 2-wheeled, flatbed wheelbarrow by using my legs, not my bad back. My feet go out at 45 degrees from front (that's 90 degrees apart), I get my buttocks down to the ground, grab the cleat handles securely, lean back, look up in the sky, and heave-ho. Most people trying this the first time say, "Whoa! My legs!" I smile and say, "See? First time you ever lifted something heavy with your legs instead of your back! You really felt that, huh?" To which the usual reply is "Wow! yeah. OK, I get it." I'll leave this point on the note that I don't have to move the bees that often.
I do also run standard hives and frames because I have to sell the bees to other beekeepers. It just gives me a base line to compare these supercharged hives to. And there are other brood box designs larger than standard, I just have not seen any with as many advantages as with the MSJD beehive. You get about 80% to 100% more bees, and half again to twice as much honey, more bees to sell as nuc's, and from which to breed queens.
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On your experiment, do be advised that some beekeepers have already made iPhone apps that analyze the sounds in side the hives, telling if they have Africanized Honey Bees, if the bees are considering swarming, and numerous other data that the bees make in sound. Thermal images are done with infrared rifle bore scopes probed into the hives in Winter. They've even invented a torque wrench fitting to test the weight of beehives instead of a hive scale. One beekeeper can check all the hives in a drop faster than 6 beekeepers can move about with 3 scales. You can search all these old topics here on Beesource using the search box. There is still a lot of room for improvement and experimentation yet.
