Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => TOP BAR HIVES - WARRE HIVES - LONG HIVES => Topic started by: trapperbob on June 30, 2009, 08:48:57 pm
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Oh such cool photos and I just love the TBH and how round the wax combs come out. It is very intriguing to me and someday I want to have such a hive. Maybe next year I will be ready to try it.
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Awesome. I envy your nice straight comb. How old is that hive and where did the bees come from? That is - from a package, nuc, swarm, etc. - and how did you hive them?
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They were a new package this year. And as far as hiving them I just dumped them in like you would a langstroth hive and used a division board feeder laid against the side at the back of the hive and let them do there thing. When I felt they could make it on their own I took the feeder out and they have been on their own ever since. That was April 17.The only thing I might do is take the screened bottom out or at least only screen a smaller area I think that the screen all the way across the bottom may have slowed them down a little by causing them to cluster more than if it had been closed up. I tried to run this hive last year and took a more hands off approach and they built out to about 9 bars and began to swarm multiple times until there was not enough bees to survive the winter. So I cut all the comb out and tried again this year and have found that if you keep sticking empty bars between the brood they keep building new comb and laying in it but only in about so many frames and when you move a brood frame to the outside edge of the brood nest they let them hatch and then put honey in the comb. It has been a strange learning curve. But I must be a glutten for punishment because I've already built two more for next spring.
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Nice TBH! How many bars have they built out so far? They look really good!
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Very nice! I dont know if I am lucky, but I only added bars to the end away fro mthe entrance and they just kept building. Never added into the brood area. I probably should though. After about 8 combs they started S shaping the comb. Was very straight until then. If I add some empty bars between my 1st 8 I imagine I will get some very straight comb again.
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I had to add a couple bars to my first hive's brood area after she got "honey bound" or so she thought (started laying a bunch of drones at the bottom of the first honey bar in prep to swarm). She still had half the tbh to build in, but wouldn't go past that one full bar of capped honey. So I slid the honey back a bit, and added a couple empty bars between the brood and the honey. She went back to laying regularly after that.
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That's just beautiful!! What are you using for your bar guides?
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The bar guides are some old plastic foundation that I had laying around and some of it is scrap wood that I cut into thin strips.
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I use paint stir sticks and had been cutting them down to about 1/4". After seeing how beautifully your girls attach to their guides, I'm going to start leaving my guides longer, too! Too many of mine build next to the guide rather than on it :roll:
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I've found the depth of the starter strip is not as important as catching any odd comb early enough to fix it befor it is a problem. After the first couple of combs they seem to be ok but if they get it wrong and I catch it early I can usually just turn the comb and the bees take it from there. And if I do'nt well I cut it out and if there is honey in it then it's snack time. Most of the time thought I can fix it but I have not had to fix any in a long time seems that once they have made a couple they ussually do just fine.
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Excellent pictures... thanks for showing.
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beautiful, I am jealous. I'll try my luck with that next year.
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That's pretty good. How long are your top bars?
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The ones you are seeing are 16.5 inches long and the hive itself is 12 inches deep and 48 inches long and last time I checked there were 5 empty bars left for them to make and the hive will be full. This has definitly been a good year.
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Nice Pics Trapperbob,
I am going to try my hand at raising 2 TBH's next year. Are you pulling the capped honey to keep them from running out of room?
Thanks for sharing,
GW
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I move the capped honey to the back and place empty bars either in the brood nest or beside the brood nest so they always think they have room. I have found that they will crowd very easy then try to swarm. So giving them empty or emptys in the brood gives them room. then ussually the outside brood frame ends up filled with honey. This means that I always have fresh comb in the brood nest and all the old comb become honey bars and are eventually harvested 1 or 2 bars at a time so as to make sure they always have enough for winter.
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That looks great! I, too, think I will build a TBH for the spring to add to the 3 Langstroth hives I now have. Those pictures really make a person want to try that. I understand that building the TBH is much less expensive than the Langstroth? I build my own anyway.
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Yeah, a lot cheaper, assuming you can find scrap or other such wood. Really, I believe a topbar hive could be made from ANYthing, as long as it had an entrance, was weather proof and had bars for the bees to build on :) That's the beauty of the topbar--its simplicity.