Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => TOP BAR HIVES - WARRE HIVES - LONG HIVES => Topic started by: Highlander on April 26, 2013, 10:26:31 am
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I am looking for information from those who have and are using the various types of Top Bar Hives. I am looking for the good and the bad from your experiences. I have just started this spring with Langs and am very interested in expanding out into other types.
I say again; the good and the bad!
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http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm (http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm)
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Thanks Michael, I have been reading your site and that is why I am interested in Top Bar Hives. Hoping to get lots of different experiences. I am already planning on adopting a lot of your suggestions as they fit my style. The idea of empty frames added to keep a large hive from swarming because there is plenty of work to do was one of those "duh" moments. Makes perfect sense but I had never read that any place else.
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I have both, TBHs and Langs. I like them both, to me it is easier to get the honey from Lang's, extract. With TBH you crush and strain. But that's just whichever.
On my TBH I made frames, not just the bar. I had started with bars, had a cut out so made frames, easier to tie comb in. I am just a hobbyist. I have thought about doing a TBH with Lang frames, except make the top bar wider, so the bees wouldn't go above the frames. This is one thing about beek, you can try whatever you can imagine. Just give it some thought first. There is an old commercial beek in my local club that told me I was crazy for using foundationless frames in my Langs. They weren't all but about 40 to 45%. I didn't bother telling him I had TBH's also.
Yeap, I did it again, got to rambling. Good luck to you and your bees.
Joe
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Thanks JoeD, I was thinking along the lines of running both types. The other thought I had in run foundationless in the hive boxes and with foundation in the Honey Supers, to facilitate honey extraction. The question is will the girls do that? Or would the foundation make them ignore the honey supers? I am brand new at this, but think they wouldn't care in the least. May not be able to start a TBH this year, but will be ready for next spring, with, hopefully, a split or even a feral trap! I am enjoying this more then I thought possible! For an old soldier to find something this invigorating is an extremely pleasant surprise!
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I started with established hives, single deep with a shallow super, with several other shallow supers. The equipment wasn't in good repair and I wanted double deeps for brood chambers. I built new deeps and replace old ones. I added foundationless frames between the frames of single deep to fill the doubles. The frames in the shallows some had fair comb and some had been messed up with wax moths. The ones that were good enough I used and the rest I made foundationless. In a TBH most always the bar or frames are foundationless.
Another reason for the thinking about building a TBH with kind of Lang frames is to make it where you could easily swap frames with other hives. I am still pondering on it, whether to change the top bar of the frame or make a sectional inner cover.
Back to your question, this is the first year I have used new foundation. I got plastic with wax coating, my bees didn't jump on the plastic. Last year I ran some foundationless frames through an extractor. If they are drawn out pretty good they held together. Here we extract twice a year, I think I had 2 frames in each harvest that blew up. Good luck to you and your bees.
Joe