First Top Bar hive inspection...EVER.

[GaryMinckler]

It went a lot better than I expected.  The only bad part was on the first bar next to the follower board the comb was attached to the follower board.  For now as I expand the hive I'll move those two out as one piece. I moved the follower boards out 3 bars on each side adding 3 empty bars outside of 8 fully drawn bars. Does this sound like the correct way to make more room? 

[RyanB]

Sounds about right. Some people will also move nice straight bars apart and put in new top bars between them to get the bee's to create another nice straight comb as well.

[luvin honey]

Sounds good. As mentioned above, it's nice to add empty bars between perfectly formed comb. Any quirks in the comb may be repeated if you add bars between quirky combs.

[trapperbob]

Also be careful not to put to many empty bars in the brood nest or it could chill the brood I have 12 brood frames in mine and they will not make the brood nest bigger so I do some thing like this. [BBBEBEBBEBEBBB] You will have 14 spaces in this brood nest now and now what happens is the out side frames of brood hatch out will then be filled with honey. Sounds as if you still have a small hive so 1 to 2 empties between bars would suffice. Watch very carefully and you will see when the brood nest is as large as they want. Some of them like mine will only expand the brood nest so far and will not go any farther. If this happens it will be crucial to put empty bars in the brood nest to keep them from swarming.just keep sliding the honey bars to the outside and place empties in the brood nest and they will always think there is room. when your bars of honey get to the end of the hive harvest a couple and place these back in the brood nest. You have two things going for you here. 1. Some form of swarm control. 2. Also a way to keep fresh comb in the brood nest so no build up of chemicals. I'm sure there are other ways to manage your TBH but this is how I do mine and it seems to work well. :)   

[GaryMinckler]

Thanks Trapperbob for the layout of your bars in the broodnest.  I was concerned about too much space between bars.  Right now mine look like (BBEEEBBBBBBEEEE...) the three empty bars are all being drawn out so I'm assuming all is OK, but I don't think I'll create that much room at one time in the future.  Chilled brood is a concern I have.  Generally my first top bar hive experience has been a very good one.  Lots easier on the back!

[luvin honey]

The other problem with EEE configuration is that they (at least in my experience) can tend to get messed up, even if the BEEEB on either side are great.

[trapperbob]

I find that to be the case also. A singal empty between a set of bars tend to be better. If you put more than that they can get out of line.

[GaryMinckler]

3 empty bars ended up getting drawn out perfectly, but I still won't create that much much space again.  Right now I have 13 bars drawn, 5 empty bars, and 2 bars outside each follower board.  Most bars are brood underneath a little honey.  This is my first TBH and it is very cool!!  I'll be building more of these.