Bee Building Up in the Topbar

[snmyork]

I have a topbar hive that I built from the design on backyardhive.com. On the topbars I coated them with wax from another hive. I have a local bee keeper that has been trying to get the bees to build in that hive for several months now and they seem to stay away from the topbars and will not build wax on them at all. He has even attached the topbar to a regular frame and put it into regular hive but to no avail. Do have any suggestions?

[luvin honey]

What are you using for guides?

[snmyork]

They have the triangle pieces that I made.

[luvin honey]

I wish I could help. I've read (MB's site, maybe?) that wax is not necessary and maybe even structurally undesirable. Could they object to something in the wax?

Out of curiosity, if they have refused to build in this for a matter of months, what have they been doing?

Good luck!

[RyanB]

Out of curiosity, if they have refused to build in this for a matter of months, what have they been doing?

Godo question! That's what I was thinking is if they wont build on a top bar, there really isnt much else to build on.

[Brian D. Bray]

I wish I could help. I've read (MB's site, maybe?) that wax is not necessary and maybe even structurally undesirable. Could they object to something in the wax?

Out of curiosity, if they have refused to build in this for a matter of months, what have they been doing?

Good luck!

A wax coating on the wood will sometimes prevent the bees from building on  the bars/frames.  Bees are used to working with bare wood, trying to outthink the bee by pre-applying wax to the frames is self-defeating.  The wax will actually  make it much harder for the combs to remain attached to the frames as it prevents the "anchoring" that bees like.
A second consdieration is population.  If there's not enough bees in a hive to force the population off of one frame and onto another they will not build comb.  Bees build comb only underfoot.  In a case of population comb building can sometimes be finesed by moving 1 or 2 drawn frames away from the main group and installing an empty frame in place.  As the bees draw back the cluster they may be motivated to drawn comb on the empty, but now occupied, frame.