From: "J. C." <hillbillynursery@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat Jan 31, 2004 12:50 pm
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@egroups.com>
Subject: Re: How long is too long for a side by side hive?

I hope to get 2 TBHs made and stocked this year. There has been alot of
discusion on this at beesource.

http://www.beesource.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/000012.html

This is the first of 17 pages on the subject. Several of the people trying TBHs have had problems with comb failure. I am building my TBHs 16? across the top with a 30 degree sloping sides. I plan on supering this hive for harvest as well as cutting some of the back combs out. It will be 40? inches long so I can place 2 supers on top or a
outer cover made like migratory covers. Many that have had the TBHs say that
once the bees fill so much comb they stop producing and prepare to swarm. This
varies between hives and size of hive. M. Bush tried standard size double long
deep and had many problems and tells about them as the thread goes on. From the
experience of others I do not think you can get them to draw 30 TBs in length.
Near the end there is a link to an african site. On it they say hives should be
around 70 liters in volume. If the math was done properly 2 deeps is 66 liters in volume. If you make your box long enough to fit 2 supers on top it will give you 1 extra TB for a little more volume. The reasons the site gives is the bees will not use the space of a box much larger(they leave it empty) and much smaller they swarm bad. I am in TN and over wintered in a deep and medium for both my hives. Another
thing that has been found out is the bees like 1 1/4 inch frames in the brood
nest area better than 1 3/8 or 1 1/2. When they decide to start building honey
store combs the like 1 1/2 better. They are so set on the different widths that
they will remove the starter strip and join the bars. If you are going to built
a top bar hive I think it is a must read.

J.C. McMinnville TN