Any Top-Bar hive users?

[txbeeguy]

Attn: BWrangler, Michael Bush (& others)

After waiting for the temperatures to moderate a little here in north Texas, I finally opened my TBH today - first time in about six weeks. What I found: comb failure! Now, I'd like to say to BWrangler, you can give yourself a break; it apparently had nothing to do with you working your hive and the bees not being able to maintain a cool enough temperature inside the hive. My combs were looking really good, a week prior to my summer vacation trip (six weeks ago) and I thought eveything would take care of itself while I was gone. So, I wasn't working my TBH or messing around with the comb and they still suffered comb failure. I had failed comb from about five different top bars. The comb separated about five inches from the top bar and fell to the bottom of the hive. I have a screen bottom, so the bees got busy and cleaned up the spilled honey; the queen continued to lay eggs in large sections of the comb that was still oriented (more-or-less) vertically. Needless to say, I had quite a mess to clean up today - cross comb, comb attached to the sides of the hive, etc. etc. But I got the hive put back into shape and guess I will now have to feed them, if they're going to be able to draw out enough comb and store enough honey to survive the coming winter. I did put in my bottom board today; it fits above the permanently screened hive bottom. I also moved the follower board down to where the bees have access to only fifteen of the top bars (rather than the full thirty) - that was about as much comb as they pulled out this year anyway.

I took a couple of photos of the failure but due to having a new digital camera, they weren't in focus (operator malfunction) so I probably won't post them. Just thought I'd share my experience since everyone is being so brutally honest with their TBH experiences.

I'm inclined to believe the depth of the comb (i.e., suspended weight) obviously contributed to the comb failure, along with the hot temperatures (my hive sits in full sun also). I have a fully screened bottom and fairly large front hive opening (I'd say, on the order of four or five square inches). So my point here, is that the bees had plenty of opportunity for air circulation. I'm hoping that next year, after the comb has a chance to become more "old" - that the comb will become stiffer and stronger.

[Michael Bush]

I also had a screened bottom board and I wonder if it doesn't contribute to the failure. In hot weather, the bees are trying to keep a cooler than outside temperature and having too much ventilation could interfere with that.

[BWrangler]

Hi Texbeeguy, Michael and Everyone,

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. :<(

There's definately some aspect of management that I don't understand. I've wondered about the heigth also but have seen pictures of comb at least 5' high hanging between studs without anymore attachment that I've seen in my tbh. And the walls were essentially clapboard and the comb should have gotten very hot in that narrow space.

And I've been quite curious about the bees desire for such a small amount of ventilation in my top bar hive. They essentially just left just a bee space at the bottom of every comb and then some communication holes around the edges of the honey storage combs. Yet they expended less effort ventilating the hive that the bees in my Langs next to them.

For a guy like me who has used screened bottom boards, ventilated covers and drills each super with a vent hole, I was amazed at the bees apparent efficiency at ventilation in my top bar hive. They used fewer bees and fanned less often than the others.

The comb I was working with in my tbh just before it failed was stiff. I was trimming some edges and thought all was well. Then comb I had previosly worked failed. I tried to pick it up to prevent any bee lose and couldn't it was just like a pulp! I couldn't even effectively scoop it up with the hive tool. So I just bulldozed it to the back of the hive.

On another note, I rendered all the wax from my top bar hive and got a little over half a bread loaf pan. Not very much wax in that new comb!

Sad Regards
Dennis
Knowing we'll get this kink in our top bar hive management worked out

[txbeeguy]

Interesting idea, Michael. I wonder....
---
I didn't try rendering my wax {yet}. Perhaps I'll do that this week - it's mainly just been a sad sight to see all that capped brood wasted but it was the only way to 'clean up' the crossed and collapsed comb. Plus, I'll still have to check back in a few days to make sure I didn't kill the queen during my "clean up".
Oh well...better luck next year!

Maybe I'll move the hive to an area with more shade (may not help a whole bunch but certainly couldn't hurt).

[Michael Bush]

The nigerian beekeeper idrisbee says they keep theirs in the shade.

I think we need to remember that the inside temperature of a hive in the heat of summer is COOLER than the outside temperature. So maybe a SBB is counterproductive.

Also, I found a "foundationless frame" designt that confirms my thoughts on how I will make my next top bars.
http://www.charlesmartinsimon.com/frameinstructions.htm http://www.charlesmartinsimon.com/pictures.htm

I think I may mill my frames to have a slope top and bottom to use with or without starter strips.

I would like to move away from foundation altogether if I can.

[beekeeper28]

I like this idea MB. After all the trials w/ just TBs and the failures everyone has had this might be the way to go. I think that a frame is a good idea. The main thing that I'm intereasted in is a horizontal hive that I can produce myself and just harvest the comb and the honey. What a about a horizontal hive that would take medium foundationless frames that would also fit into a standard medium box?

[Michael Bush]

I have a horizontal medium depth hive right now except I have it full of PermaComb. It is three boxes wide (16 1/4" times 3 = 48 3/4") and medium depth and it has a screened bottom board the length of the hive. It is prospering and is easy to work. I figured I would add supers on the back third of it if I needed them. I usaed a 1 x 8 (which is 7 1/4" deep) and cut the rabbet 3/4" (which leaves 3/8" beespace on top with PermaComb on spacers), cut a notch for the front door and put screen on the bottom and I have a 1/2 below the regular frames for the bottom space and 3/4" on the bottom of the PermaComb. No waste of lumber.

I also have a standared vertical hive of all starter strips. It is also prospering, although it ended up queenless with a laying worker for a while. They did build a lot of drone comb. I was planning to convert it to horizontal also.

I really like horizontal hives for ease of work and minimum disruption of the hive.

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

I've got a horizontal hive using the unfoundation approach in the works also. It will be two boxes long.

Should we start another thread for this one or tag it on to an older thread. I know Michael had a thread that would work?

Regards
Dennis

[Michael Bush]

It doesn't matter to me where we discuss it. http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif Here's a link to the Jakson Horizontal hive. Note the frames are a solid top bar (no gaps) and a dowel for the sides and bottom. Easy to make.
http://www.rupertshoney.co.za/rh/

[Michael Bush]

I am already starting a Dadant Deep horizontal hive, with the thought that if you're only one story high, you may as well be a tall story. Since I'm not going to lift the hive I don't care if the frames are heavy. I'm thiking if I angled the top and bottom bars and put a 1/2 square piece of wood horizontally in the center at a 45 degree angle (like a diamond shape) then maybe I could get the same effect as the "foundationless" frames I mentioned above. It would have some support in the middle. It could be used for cut comb (a row above and one below) or even extracted if you were gentle. It wouldn't require foundation and it wouldn't sag much with weight in it. One could even put two horizontals in or even a couple of verticals if you wanted to. What do you think would work the best to support the comb and not interfere with natural comb building?

The vertical version would provide support from the begining. The horizontal won't provide any support until the comb reaches the half way point.

[txbeeguy]

Since this was (is) my first year with a TBH, I have found it a little interesting [challenging] to figure out how to apply TM this Fall. I typically use TM patties to accomplish this and since there's "no boxes" to set it between, it presents a problem unique to TBHs. My top bars also don't have notches cut in them so applying it as a sugar/powder mixture isn't a solution either.
I have no idea if this will work but I put some on the 'landing board' (just slightly inside the hive) and some more (patty version) on the bottom board. Since my TBH is a fairly "deep" V-shaped construction, it remains to be seen if they will consume the patty on the bottom board. Guess I'll report my findings later...
How are you guys doing this?

[Michael Bush]

The last time I fed TM was 28 years ago and I used it in syrup.

[txbeeguy]

Why do you not preventatively treat with TM? Have you never had a problem with foulbrood (either EFB or AFB)?
--
(Putting TM in syrup is not a recommended method for distributing TM)

[Michael Bush]

>Why do you not preventatively treat with TM? Have you never had a problem with foulbrood (either EFB or AFB)?

I have never had any kind of foulbrood. I think using TM just masks any problems you have. It's an opportunistic disease that attacks weak colonies. Also if you treat for prevention then you contribute to the whole TM resistant AFB problem. Perhaps if I ever had AFB I would have a different attitude.

>(Putting TM in syrup is not a recommended method for distributing TM)

No it is not because the TM breaks down quicker in the syrup. But 28 years ago when I did it was the recommended method.

[txbeeguy]

My inclination is to say, if you've never had a problem with foulbrood in 28 years of beekeeping, as prevalent as foulbrood spores are, then you've either been very, very lucky or truly, you're on to something. I don't know which.
I don't agree that it's an opportunistic disease, attacking only a weak colony. Just after writing the previous sentence, I went back and reviewed my copy of "The Hive and the Honey Bee" - specifically, chapter 25, the section on diseases and pests of honeybees. Nothing I read in this book alludes to it being an opportunistic disease. It appears to me, for a hive to be infected, only active spores and larvae of the correct age have to come in contact with one another. And "peventative treatment" is one of the few measures available to counter this particuliar threat.
I do note, they mention varying degrees of natural resistance existing in some honeybee genetics - and being a "big fan" (i.e., believer) of letting/encouraging honeybees to develop their own native resistance to such things (including Varroa mites, as an example) - I'm inclined to consider your "non-treatment" idea. The main problem I have, is that if your hives become infected, your options become so drastically limited - in the case of AFB, having to destroy equipment. Unlike mite treatment, where you can just "begin again" and perhaps use Apistan or Checkmite next time around, foulbrood is a little different animal (so to speak).
Anyway, this is probably becoming 'off-topic' and better belongs to the "disease and pest" forum. Back to my main question (assuming that you ARE treating with TM), are there any recommendations as to HOW to treat a TBH with TM?

[Michael Bush]

Part of the reason I mentioned the syrup is that was the recommended method of administration at one time. The only real problem with it was that in syrup it breaks down quicker. Obviously it did work, it's just that other methods were determined to be more foolproof. One problem was if the bees didn't take the syrup right away it lost it's effectivness. The point is that feeding it in syrup does work and that might be an option for you. I suppose you could pull out a couple of the empty bars at the end, space them all apart and dust them.

As to the opportunistic quality of AFB, the spores are in all bee combs all the time. Why does one hive get an outbreak and most don't?

[txbeeguy]

> Why does one hive get an outbreak and most don't?

I guess that was the "luck of the draw" that I was referring to earlier. According to THHB, there is only a three day window for larvae to be susceptible to the bacteria. And since the live bacteria is encapsulated in a very tough spore – it appears to me that the "right conditions" for an infection are quite happenstance. I'm not sure the entomologist (or microbiologist) have a very good handle/understanding of what causes the hard outer shell of the spore to breakdown, releasing the live bacteria. And certainly timing plays a role; when (and IF) the spore breaks down, the release of the bacteria must be in physically close proximity to the correctly aged larvae (i.e., to be ingested by the larvae).

[txbeeguy]

Forgot to mention, your syrup idea is (sounds) reasonable to me. The Terra-patties or repeated TM/sugar dusting procedure, currently recommended, are only to extend the exposure time of the bees to the TM. If they take down the syrup (at the correct LD strength), I see no reason why that shouldn't work. And my TBH is set up to handle an entrance feeder - so that might be a way to go. (Guess I'll wait now to see how they treat the TM patty on the bottom board).

[BWrangler]

Hi Everyone,

TM has a very short life if wet and in the sun. Feeding the stuff inside the hive where it's dark would be better.

When working as a commercial beekeeper, TM was routinely feed in extender patties. With my own hobby bees, I used to feed the stuff routinely, but stopped a decade ago. Except for one recent occurance, I've had no problems, but I am surrounded by beekeepers.

I would only use TM now if the disease were obvious. I would remove the infected comb, a very easy task in a tbh. And I would dust them with a varroa blaster.

A varroa blaster can be used to disperse the TM as well as to dust the hive for mites with powdered sugar. They are easy to make. Just take a large, plastic gatoraide or similar bottle. I like the large salsa bottles because of the handle. Drill some very small holes in the plastic cap. Fill the bottle 1/3 full with the TM/powdered sugar. Place a piece of panty hose nylon material over the open end and screw the lid down locking the material in place.

When the blaster is squeezed, a very fine smoke like dust comes out. Rap the bottom of the blaster on something solid to restore it's performance if the cloth becomes clogged with lumpy sugar.

I think several blasts from the back of the hive and under the comb would get enough TM powder up toward the front without moving each comb.

Regards
Dennis



[This message has been edited by BWrangler (edited October 06, 2003).]

[txbeeguy]

BWrangler, that also sounds like a workable solution. Yes, I understand the syrup problem but "fogging them" also appears to have a couple of drawbacks. First, like you said, you'd want to do it from the back of the hive to keep from getting TM directly on open/young brood cells which are more toward the front of the hive. But then, that would have you directly dusting "potential" eatable honeycomb (at the back of the hive).

Perhaps I can live with the latter problem if my idea of putting a regular medium-depth honey super above the top bars works. The idea involves removing one top bar and covering the remaining top bars with a black plastic sheet that has a slit cut in it to allow the bees access to the honey super. The assumption is that the bees will not build filler comb due to the flexing/unstable nature of the plastic sheet but would go up to store honey in the super. In that way, it wouldn't matter if the comb at the back of the TBH was fogged with TM or not.

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

I've got a webpage up on my powdered sugar varroa blaster if you're interested:
www.geocities.com/usbwrangler/blas.htm (http://www.geocities.com/usbwrangler/blas.htm)

Regards
Dennis

[Michael Bush]

I've been thinking that maybe bwrangler is on to something on the ventilation aspects. In a TBH the bees have more freedom to build things the way they want them and therefore to set up the ventilation the way they want. And in the end they seem to ventilate less. When we put an open screened bottom board on them, we change the ventilation substantially. I'm begining to think part of the comb failure is due to the screened bottom board. Also, we do change the ventilation while working the hive, which on a hot day could cause problems.

I'm thinking a closed SBB would be more natural.

How much do you think our "beespace" around the frames in a Lanstroth hive interferes with the bees ventilation plans?

I'm starting to plan my next TBH experiment for the spring.

[BWrangler]

Hello Everyone,

I chatted with Barry B. about his top bar hive the other day. He didn't have any comb failures and, if I understand correctly, stuck strickly to the optimum requirements for a hive cavity. I think it has only one entrance hole about 1 1/4" diameter.

Any details, Barry?

I must admit that for several days after opening my failed top bar hive I sure wished that it had a screened bottom instead of the solid one. But the difference in strength between the unworked comb and those that I had mangled kept coming back to me. I am sure that the hive would be intact today if I hadn't meddled with it.

But I've got alot to learn and am thinking about next years tbh and long hive with natural comb as well. It is just too fascinating to give up on now!

Anyone have a new top bar hive project in the works. Would enjoy hearing of the details.

Regards
Dennis

[txbeeguy]

> would be intact today if I hadn't meddled with it

Not from my experience! I was gone to Russia for a month so my TBH had nobody "meddling" with it and it's comb still failed. My TBH also had a screened bottom - so there should have been plenty of air circulation.

I'm thinking the only change I'm going to make on it next year is to place it in the shade. It's present location exposes it to sun virtually all day. We'll see how that works out. Plus, the combs that did manage to survive should be harder and much stronger next year.

[dragonfly]

This is getting off the current subject, but I want to build a new TBH for next year with sloped sides. What is the best angle to use for the sides?
My current top bar hive has a fully screened bottom, but a knot hole that's a little over an inch in diameter for the entrance (the only entrance). I haven't had any problems with comb tearing away from the top bars. My hives get full sun during the Summer until about two o'clock, then are shaded. Don't know if that makes any difference.

[Michael Bush]

I'm not sure any "scientific" answer exists for the slope of the side, but 22 degrees or so off of vertical is popular. I've used it and it worked well. I think we are all wondering if less would still not get attached too much and if less slope would be weaker or stronger.

[Barry]

Dennis wrote:

"I chatted with Barry B. about his top bar hive the other day. He didn't have any comb failures and, if I understand correctly, stuck strickly to the optimum requirements for a hive cavity. I think it has only one entrance hole about 1 1/4" diameter."

Hi Dennis -

When is this TBH discussion going to out post the Permacomb thread? Let's go!

I had no comb failure, just bees that failed to build a hive full of comb. No screen bottom on the hive or upper ventilation, just an 1-1/4" hole at the end, or is it the beginning? Remember though, I had modified "frames" and not true top bars. Mine have some wires in them too. I also left them alone for the most part. Did very little hive inspection. I hope to tear into it more next year and see what they are doing.

Regards,
Barry

[BWrangler]

Greetings Everyone,

I have noticed that not every comb gets equally attached to the sidewalls of my tbh. But those storage combs that are full of honey are almost completely connected to the sidewall. Could it be possible that the bees can determine the amount of stress or stretch that is occuring on a specific comb and reinforce it by attaching it to the sidewall?

On another note, I was looking at the shape of some of the comb failure that occured last summer. The comb didn't fail along a horizontal or vertical line, but rather along an catenary type shape. That's the shape that a substance will take to equalize the forces under compression.

One way to create that kind of force that wasn't discussed before would be if the weight of the comb caused the top bar to deform. The top bar supported by its ends would bend the greatest amount at its midpoint. The comb could be stretched on the ends and compressed in middle.

I didn't notice any obvious top bar sagging. And I sure don't know how import a factor it could be as beeswax behaves very diffently when it's warm. Maybe it would take very little deformation to contribute to a failure.

Just some pondering on a Wyoming winter day.

Regards
Dennis
When plucking the comb, thunk is ok but twang means glue er in...pronto in bee talk

[BWrangler]

Hi Barry and Everyone,

I have an idea on how to pass all those permacomb guys.

I will let everyone know as soon as I can figure out how to get permacomb attached to a top bar.

Best Regards
Dennis

[This message has been edited by BWrangler (edited November 08, 2003).]

[Hillbillynursery]

Some of you know me from the yahoo groups and a few post here. I plan on using what I got as far as lumber and tools goes. I have 2 X 4-12 left overs from job sites. I am going to make a long hive(2 langs long) and atleast do some experimenting with TBHs.

Other than weight of the hive do you see a down side to using thick lumber as I do not plan on moving the hives?
Will the added thickness give more insulation in winter?
How hard will it be cutting the angles needed to make a sloping sided TBH with just a skill saw and hand saws but no table saw? I may just use TBs for honey storage this year above my long hive.

[Michael Bush]

>Other than weight of the hive do you see a down side to using thick lumber as I do not plan on moving the hives?

If the sides of the hive are more than 3/4" then you will have to build the tops to fit. I use migratory covers side by side on my long hives and they butt up against each other. If the hive were wider then the cleats on the migratory covers wouldn't fit.

>Will the added thickness give more insulation in winter?

Of course.

>How hard will it be cutting the angles needed to make a sloping sided TBH with just a skill saw and hand saws but no table saw?

How straight can you cut? I do this all the time with just a skill saw, but I once free formed an electric guitar body with a skill saw, cut a new round lid for my extractor with a skill saw etc. If you are good with a skill saw, it will be easy.

>I may just use TBs for honey storage this year above my long hive.

Are you sloping the sides on the TB supers? I'd say most of us had the most problems with honey. It's heavier. But then if it collapses it seems like less of a loss.

If it was me and I was going to use top bars for supers, I'd just cut them to fit a lanstroth box and use a shallow super. That way the weight won't be so much. I'm always torn between trying to get a natural arch to the shape of the comb or limiting the weight of the honey in proportion to the attachment to the bar (shallow vs deep). Whatever you decide, good luck. There is a beekeeper around here who for years has used just top bars in shallow supers with starter strips.

[Ian]

>Will the added thickness give more insulation in winter?

My brother is a carpenter. He tells me that 1" of fiberglass insulation =
3" of wood
18" of brick
21" of average soil
39" of concrete
44" of stone masonry

Kind of makes your head shake. Wood is a good insulator, compared to concreet

Ian

[Hillbillynursery]

I am going to make my own tops as well so the extra thickness will not be a problem there. I only got one good arm. My other is usable but is numb so it is hard to do alot with because I am constantly over or under gripping what I want to pick up with it. I guess I will give it a try. I have not used any of my saws since the accident. My plans for a TBH is a 2 X 12 with the angles cut for the sloped side and level the top. I am thinking this would be close to 10 inches deep. Most of you that had the TBHs had deeper hives to my memory. I will be unable to make a fancy top bar. I plan on ripping some 2xs to get the 1 1/2 inch wide bars. I am thinking that I will make these 1 inch thich for added suport partly because of a theory earlier in the thread that suggest the slightest bowing of the top bars may add to comb failer. I will have my TBHs where my colonies are now as I am going to move my hives in the spring. This location is easier to get to and has mid day/ early afternoon shade. The tree that gives them shade is a mighty white oak and I am thinking if I get acouple TBHs made I may suspend one from the lower limb on the south side to see if it makes a better hive to work. Plants that are grown with no wind will not build a thick stalk like those that have had wind blowing on them. This is why trees in the woods are more slender than trees out in the open. Maybe if bee feel a stress like the wind blowing the hive back and forth they will built the comb thicker and help keep the comb from failing. I got this idea from a site given on this board where they made a hive with solid top bar frames(no space for the bees to go up) and made them long and hung them in trees.

[Michael Bush]

I've thought a lot about the slope. I can't say there is more or less attachments, but the more I think about it, I think the corner of the comb was what would sway first and start the failure. I think without that corner sticking out the comb is much stronger and less prone to failure.

I think I will try two versions this spring.

1) a 48 3/4" long (three Lanstroth boxes) medium box with top bars to see if a shalower comb will hold up better because of more attachment to the top for the amount of comb.
2) a 16" wide 11" deep slope sided box to see if the narrower comb with sloped sides will hold up better. This seems to be the more common arrangment for a TBH.

[silverlakefarm]

I'm new to beekeeping. I'm planning on making some top bar hives this winter out of clear Rubbermaid containers. They seem to be about the right size and I thought it would be cool to see the bees at work. I'm wondering how the bees are affected by a clear hive as opposed to an opaque hive? Should I cover the hive to restrict light into it?

thanks,
Daniel

[Michael Bush]

>I'm new to beekeeping. I'm planning on making some top bar hives this winter out of clear Rubbermaid containers. They seem to be about the right size and I thought it would be cool to see the bees at work. I'm wondering how the bees are affected by a clear hive as opposed to an opaque hive? Should I cover the hive to restrict light into it?

Can you say "Solar wax melter"? Yes you need to restrict the light just to let the bees control the heat. Not to mention allowing the shy queen to get around.

I just put a sheet of plexiglass on one wall and drill holes in it to screw a frame of 1 x 2's on and then make a board to cover that. I remove the board to peek in. I don't know how the rubber maid plastic will work. I would think you'd get a lot of condensation.

[BWrangler]

Hi Daniel,

I don't think a clear plastic container would work very well. The bees, and especially the queen, are sensitive to light and the retreat away from it.

Also the bees nest in a cavity which helps moderate conditions, from both the summer heat and the winter cold. The plastic container wouldn't provide much moderation.

I had thought about using a cheap plastic cooler. They can be purchased on sale cheaper than the plastic container. A window could be constructed in one side for viewing and then closed during normal hive operations.

Most of the cheap coolers are just a little too small for a large colony to overwinter in up North.

For me, a wooden tbh was cheaper. It was also easier to work with.

Regards and Happy Beekeeping
Dennis

[Michael Bush]

I drew up the plans for my slope sided TBH. It is simply a 4' 1 x 6 for the bottom (3/4" x 5 1/2") and two 4' 1 x 12s for the sides (3/4" x 11 1/4") and two 15" long 1 x 12s for the ends. I want to design something anyone can build so I will leave all the ends square and nail through the bottom of the 1 x 6 into the 1 x 12s and then spread the 1 x 12s to 15" at the top and nail the 15" long ends into the sloped sides I think I'll make the entrance in the center of the end. I have those disks for nucs I could use to control the entrance, or I could make it a slot and use a piece of wood for the reducer. I think I'll skip the SBB etc. I figure the comb on this will yeild three 4" x 4" cut comb chunks. I'm afraid of comb collapse if the comb is bigger and afraid of ineffecient laying if it's smaller.

I'm going to rip 1 bys to 1 5/16" wide to make the top bars and rip the edges of a 1 by at 45 degrees to make a "centerer" that makes a strip I will nail and glue on the bottom of the bars to keep the combs centered. Then I'll wax the lower edge of the "centerer".

I'm still contemplating going to 1 1/2" or 1 5/8" wide bars for the super portion of the hive.

I bought the materials last night.

[Hillbillynursery]

On the same thinking as you, I plan on making my TBH out of 2"X12"s( i have the material from job sites) as sides but I am going to use plywood for a bottom. I want the top the widthbeing the width of the narrow side of the lang and 2 times as long so that I can supper the hive.

[BusyBee]

I was thinking of doing a TBH this spring, but heres what I was thinking of doing.
I was going to make my bars so that they fit into a regular medium langstroth. However I was thinking instead of leaving them at that, I could make sides on the top bar that are wider at the top so that the bees attach the comb to the sides too. That would give the comb some extra support and I would not have to worry about comb being attached to the sides of the hive. Im still not sure wether or not to put a bottom bar on it to make it a complete frame. I plan on using my TBH exclusively for comb honey production.

What do you all think?

Jon http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

[Hillbillynursery]

If you are going to the trouble of adding sides and maybe a bottom bar why not just use frames with a starter strip instead of foundation. The reason I want to try TBHs is to get away from ordering boxes and frames. If I had the money for a table saw and a jointer I would make everything I need. I have a few beekeepers say I am crazy for using 2Xs for the bottom boards I made this year. Yes they are much heavier than the ones made out of plywood but the wood was free and I do not move my hives around. The other reason for TBHs is to watch the bees as close to nature as possible but yet manage them. I have a piece of plexy glass that is going to become the side of my deep long hive. In the back I am planning on using frames with just a starter strip at the top. This way I can actually watch the hive exspand. But we will see if I can get these done while my wife is out of college for winter break. Since my back injury I have become Mr. Mom. What little time she is home she has to study and spend a little with the kids and me. I can not wait for Dec. 19th.

[silverlakefarm]

I had a question about a post Steve made a while back.

I belive he said he used bars with no starter strip just the blank bar and that worked just fine. In all the reading I've done about top bar hives I have never heard of this. I'm I reading that correctly and if so it seems like a pretty radical idea. Does anyone have a comment on that idea?

thanks,
Daniel

[Hillbillynursery]

There is a way of cutting your tob bar that makes a V on the bottom of the bars. With these type of bars all you need to do is rub this ridge with wax for a starter. It is said the combs will be straighter and that they are less likely to cross comb.

[Michael Bush]

>I belive he said he used bars with no starter strip just the blank bar and that worked just fine. In all the reading I've done about top bar hives I have never heard of this. I'm I reading that correctly and if so it seems like a pretty radical idea. Does anyone have a comment on that idea?

I have cut a slope on the bottom of the bar with no starter strip. I have done starter strips. I am experimenting more on what angle to do, but I'm going to do a 45 degree from each side (a 90 degree with the verticie pointing down) this time. The slope works as well or maybe a bit better than the starter strip. But bees will be bees and nothing is gauranteed. I think getting the spacing of the bars right helps keep them in line.

I tried a longer top bar (standard Lanstroth size) with with straight sides and standard depth (9 5/8") and the combs failed.

The one I'm building now, the bars are 15" (meaning the combs are only a little over 12") and the sides are sloped. The comb will be about the same depth (9 1/2" or so) but is only about 4" wide at the bottom. This seems to be closer to the TBH's I know of that are succeeding. The acual comb will be half the size (and weight) of what my last failure was.

I may also try one in a standard medium box to see if just shortening the comb will help with failures. The square comb will be easier to cut with less waste.

[Steve-]

Hello All:

Daniel, you did read correctly but I also stated I had originally used a starter strip. In my first year I used 3 or 4 starter strips and once the bees had started building on them I inserted blank bars and the bees lined up and took care of the rest. My bars are flat no v cut. I know that method may not appeal to some but it has worked for me. When I have started new hives since, I just take two bars that have been started or bars that have been harvested and place them in the new hive put a blank between them and the bees have done the rest.
I had thought I might try a sloped hive but after reading of the difficulty folks had this past summer I have decided to stay with my straight sided design. I have not lost a bar or comb for 2 summers. I did reduce the size of my hives I believe that is what has helped. The inside depth I now use is right at 12 inches, on one box my top bars are 19" long and on the other 17". This summer I collected 60 lbs of surplus honey out of my small hive that can hold only 15 bars. I used the last four bars in the hive for harvest - multiple harvest of that section kept it from becoming honey bound and it did not swarm (the bees filled the bars again in the fall, for winter).

Happy Hiving,
Steve

[Kansas Volunteer]

I've been reading and re-reading the discussion of the tbh and would like some advice. In fact I'll take all I can get. I want to build a top bar hive. I've corresponded with a few of the folks regularly posting here, and have gotten some good tips.

Now, it's time to pull it all together and start building. I'm figuring on making a Kenyan tbh that would be 16-inches wide and 12-inches deep (inside measurment) and long enough to set about 20 to 24 bars.

I'm wondering a lot about the smaller details, like openings, ventilation and such. Also, should I put in a wire mesh bottom? What about using some sort of false floor over the wire mesh bottom, if I go that way, like the plastic grids used in the CalKenyan hives? Or, would a solid bottom be better?

I have a big pile of nice scrap lumber, and the tools and skills needed to build a hive. It can be as simple or detailed as seems approriate. So, tell me, if you were building the tbh of your dreams, what would it look like? Or, if you had to do it all over agian, what would you do differently? Am I on the right track?

David S.

[Michael Bush]

I will preface this with my experience so far. I built a top bar hive back in the 70's but it was small and temporary. I did not maintain a TBH nor did I attempt another one until last year. I built the bars and simply started them in a standard Lanstroth deep and then moved them to a double wide Lanstroth deep (32 1/2 x 19 7/8") with a screened bottom board. The combs collapsed and I tied them into wooden frames and move them into a Lanstroth hive. From listening to other failures and successes (but this is no from my sucess yet) I decided the combs definitely needed to be smaller and perhaps the open screened bottom board interfered with natural ventilation of the bees and caused the combs to get too hot. So this time I decided to keep it simple and not bother with the screened bottom. I also shortened the bars and sloped the sides. The one I built in the 70's was slope sided so I decided that may have to do with it's sucess. Perhaps it's not about connections to the sides (I tried both sloped and straight now and don't see that much difference) but about the strength of the shape. The one I just built is made from three four foot 1 x 12's a four foot 1 x 6 and two 15" 1 x 12's. I set the 1 x 12's up with the 1 x 6 on top and naile down through the 1 x 6 into the 1 x 12. I marked the center of the 15" boards and the center of the 1 x 6 and nailed the 15" 1 x 12s to the 1 x 6. Then I spread the 1 x 12 sides out to the ends of the 15" ends and nailed them. I'm making my bars out of 1 x ripped to 1 1/4" for the brood chamber (I have small cell bees) and 1 1/2" for the back portion which will be the honey. I was thinking of leaving the gap at the front between the edge and the first bar for the entrance. I have an old piece of 3/4 plywood I'm putting on top for a lid so that would leave a gap about 5/16" at top between the lid and the box.

>Now, it's time to pull it all together and start building. I'm figuring on making a Kenyan tbh that would be 16-inches wide and 12-inches deep (inside measurment) and long enough to set about 20 to 24 bars.

Sounds reasonable. I would probably make it a little longer. The size I did and the method I used required no ripping of the sides and all cuts are square. 16 inches wide will reqire something wider than a 1 x 12 to do the sides and have it 12" deep. Mine ended up closer to 10 1/2" deep.

>I'm wondering a lot about the smaller details, like openings, ventilation and such.

Play it by ear. Leave an opening. See if they seem too hot and all hanging outside and decide if you need more ventilation. If so, I'd try to have the door and the vent at opposite ends at opposite heights. In other words, if the entrance is on the top, put the vent in the back at the bottom. If the entrance is on the front at the top, put the vent in the back at the bottom. Put some screen wire on the vent in the back and make a cover that lets the air in but blocks the direct light so they don't propolize it so much.

>Also, should I put in a wire mesh bottom?

That's up to you. I skipped it this time, but I came to the conclusion that I'm building an experiment, not a permenant hive. I think the open SBB may have contributed to failure of the comb.

>What about using some sort of false floor over the wire mesh bottom, if I go that way, like the plastic grids used in the CalKenyan hives? Or, would a solid bottom be better?

I like slatted racks in my hives and that was what the CalKenyan was trying to emulate. I like the idea. As I said, I concluded that this was just an experimental and after I work out the details of comb size and shape I'll polish up the design.

>I have a big pile of nice scrap lumber, and the tools and skills needed to build a hive. It can be as simple or detailed as seems approriate. So, tell me, if you were building the tbh of your dreams, what would it look like? Or, if you had to do it all over agian, what would you do differently? Am I on the right track?

I decided the main appeal of a TBH was simplicity. So I went for simple this time.

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

Ok. Now you have done it. You/ve got me thinking about my tbh. :> )I had the lumber cut for my next tbh and was waiting for a really nasty spell of winter weather to assemble it.

I continue to have questions concerning entrances and ventilation. I have found that the bees do best when my hives approximate what they want if left to themselves. But I have my drill handy and can modify my understanding anytime their behavior dictates. :> )

I would add a cleat across each end of my tbh. I move my hives and the tbh is easy to move with a cart but hard to position without the cleats.

I will make my next top bars 1 3/8"s wide rather than the 1 1/4"s prevously used. The narrower bar worked perfect in the broodnest but the bees over-ran it in the honey storage area. I'm not sure if the wider bar will work any better there.

My top bars will be thicker at 1" rather than 3/4"s.

I will cut attached comb using an L or J shaped device like the one mentioned earlier on this forum. The hive tool will stay in the truck.

Any starter strip used won't extend farther than about a cell width beyond the top bar.

One of the neatest aspects of a tbh is that they are designed, built and run according to the beekeepers needs. I've found them most rewarding so far.

Regards
Dennis

[Michael Bush]

I am cutting the corner off of a 1 by and using it glued and nailed (and clinched) on to the top bar. This keeps the bar from sliding back and forth, sidways, and elimimates the starter strips altogehter.

So the end of the bar looks like this:
_
V

[Kansas Volunteer]

Michael and Wrangler, I have quite a bit of 3/4 plywood, so I can make my hive 12 inches deep easily enough. All the other dimensions can be varied as well. I've deduced from my reading that the folks having problems with comb breakage, for the most part, have top bars longer than 16 inches, so I settled on that figure for my inside width. Not all the breaking combs have been in deep hives, but most seem to have been, so I figured 10 to 12 inches would make a good compromise.

I was reading at the Steve Cushman site, I believe I've got it right, about the catenary hive desing. There's mention there of putting a baffle just inside the entrance, allowing a bee space, to stop wind from blowing in. So, here's what I'm wondering: If I make a tbh with a 1.25-inch round hole for an opening, as there seems to be an argument for that, if I placed a larger disk, say 2-inches, one bee space away, on the inside of the hive, centered over the opening, would it help any, or would it hurt? Also, would it be worthwhile to leave the equivalent of one bar's space at the front of the hive for a lobby area for the bees to move through?

Here's my next "issue." You can read on-line at http://www.beedata.com/data3/hollow_tree.htm about an interesting experiment. The guy decided that combs should be kept six inches above the floor, and likewise the entrance should be that high, or higher, for mite control. Would it be worthwile to put some sort of slatted bottom in a tbh, stopping combs from extending below six inches above the floor, in accordance with the hollow tree theory? If it is, would having a solid bottom, or a wire mesh bottom make any difference?

In this case, how about putting a vent hole near the bottom, back and the opening up high? It would make for a natural draw, to some extent. I think someone here wrote about natural ventilation in hives. This would make sort of a combination tbh and hollow tree hive.

Here's a theory I shared with one of the other tbh guys on the side: if the top bars were made in a boomerang shape, viewed from the side, when placed in the hive, they would rise from the supported ends to form a ridge down the top of the hive, like many of the house-roof-like covers put on hives. Comb built from these top bars would be somewhat stiffer and less likely to break away from the bar due to movement (although maybe not due to heat) it certainly adds a level of complication to the tbh, but would it perhaps help enough with comb breakage to be worth while?

One final question. I've seen a mention here somewhere of an optimum hive capacity, or volume, the way I understood it. Does anyone know what that is?

[Kansas Volunteer]

Michael and Wrangler, I have quite a bit of 3/4 plywood, so I can make my hive 12 inches deep easily enough. All the other dimensions can be varied as well. I've deduced from my reading that the folks having problems with comb breakage, for the most part, have top bars longer than 16 inches, so I settled on that figure for my inside width. Not all the breaking combs have been in deep hives, but most seem to have been, so I figured 10 to 12 inches would make a good compromise.

I was reading at the Steve Cushman site, I believe I've got it right, about the catenary hive desing. There's mention there of putting a baffle just inside the entrance, allowing a bee space, to stop wind from blowing in. So, here's what I'm wondering: If I make a tbh with a 1.25-inch round hole for an opening, as there seems to be an argument for that, if I placed a larger disk, say 2-inches, one bee space away, on the inside of the hive, centered over the opening, would it help any, or would it hurt? Also, would it be worthwhile to leave the equivalent of one bar's space at the front of the hive for a lobby area for the bees to move through?

Here's my next "issue." You can read on-line at http://www.beedata.com/data3/hollow_tree.htm about an interesting experiment. The guy decided that combs should be kept six inches above the floor, and likewise the entrance should be that high, or higher, for mite control. Would it be worthwile to put some sort of slatted bottom in a tbh, stopping combs from extending below six inches above the floor, in accordance with the hollow tree theory? If it is, would having a solid bottom, or a wire mesh bottom make any difference?

In this case, how about putting a vent hole near the bottom, back and the opening up high? It would make for a natural draw, to some extent. I think someone here wrote about natural ventilation in hives. This would make sort of a combination tbh and hollow tree hive.

Here's a theory I shared with one of the other tbh guys on the side: if the top bars were made in a boomerang shape, viewed from the side, when placed in the hive, they would rise from the supported ends to form a ridge down the top of the hive, like many of the house-roof-like covers put on hives. Comb built from these top bars would be somewhat stiffer and less likely to break away from the bar due to movement (although maybe not due to heat) it certainly adds a level of complication to the tbh, but would it perhaps help enough with comb breakage to be worth while?

One final question. I've seen a mention here somewhere of an optimum hive capacity, or volume, the way I understood it. Does anyone know what that is?

[Michael Bush]

As far as draftproofing the entrance, a top entrance with a comb to block the draft into the hive is the "natural" way the bees do it in a tree.

I think the optimal size a swarm prefers is a different matter from the optimal size of a full hive. I believe it is approximately 4 liters in volume. Having a follower allows you to change the size to suit the season or the hive size.

A log hive is the opposite (in regards to direction) of a TBH or any trough hive. But I think the essentials of the success of a log hive are two factors.

1) A top entrance so that the varroa that fall off don't get the opportunity to climb on bees entering the hive.

2) A pile of detrius and a gap to it at the bottom of the hive. This is usually full of ants and wax moth larvae.

I don't know that both couldn't be maintained in a trough formation, but most hives are not set up that way. In theory the SBB is an attempt to get the same effect as far as Varroa. They fall off but can't get back on, and it maintains a small, but useful, gap at the bottom. Spreading the bees horizontally may be MORE effective if there is an upper entrance and no bees where the varroa fall (SBB or slatted rack effect etc.)

These effects (bottom entrance, no detrius etc.) are in my list of things we change from nature by the way we keep bees. I think we need to do more experimenting and research on the effects of such things.

Most of the bee scientists (I spend a weekend with several a couple of weeks ago) believe that the feral bees are extinct, so they have no interst in it from that point of view.

[BWrangler]

Hi Michael and Kansas Volunteer,

I'd noticed that the bees will bend a comb to form a wind baffle if the entrance is parallel to the comb. When it's perpendicular the first comb forms the wind baffle. That's why I put my entrance in the end of the tbh.

I'm not sure about the entrance cluster space If you try it out, let us know how it works.

A force applied perpendicular to the comb is the most damaging force. The bees will curl the ends of the comb toward the entrance to reinforce the comb against movement in that direction. I used long starter strips in my tbh and the bees attached the comb rather weakly to my top bars. Yet, none of my comb failed at that point.

I used screened bottom boards with my standard equipment. When I converted that equipment to small cell and stop counting mites, I removed the sbb without any negative effects. I'm hoping that with natural sized comb, the same processes will occur. In my climate, central Wyoming, the bees do better without the sbb because of our high winds late, cold springs and lousy fall weather.

Concerning optimum size/volume, my bees quickly drew out about the equivalent of two deeps. Then they packed the area above the broodness with honey leaving the core broodnest area, that area of small cell sized comb, free for brood rearing.

The top bars behind the broodnest, in the honey storage area, were then filled to about top bar 20. After that the bees reduced their activity much like a hive does before it swarms although they had plenty of room, bees and forage.

When I transferred these bees to standard equipment with abundant empty space directly above the broodnest, these same bees filled two deep supers in less than 10 days. That's the difference in production between a tbh and standard equipment, lots of space above the broodnest.

Others have reported much the same, even though some run somewhat shallower hives than mine. The volumes still work to about two deep supers.

I originally though that longer would be better but wouldn't build one much longer that 24 bars, now.

Hey Michael, when you find some of those small, black, nasty ferals to remove just repeat:

I can't get stung they are extinct...
I can't get stung they are extinct... :> )

Regards
Dennis

[BWrangler]

Hey Kansas Volunteer,

Take some pictures of your tbh project. I'd like to see what you come up with.

Regards
Dennis

[BWrangler]

Hi Everyone,

Almost all of the ventilation in my tbh occured along the bottom board. As the combs got heavy, the bees securely fastened them to the sidewalls, especially in the honey storage area. Very little space was left for ventilation at the top and sides. Most combs had, at most, only a couple of finger sized holes along a side.

I had planned to drill some 3/4" holes toward the rear top edge of the hive to provide some draft if needed. But I think that very little draft would have resulted except in within a very localized area.

Barry used a 1 1/4" entrance hole and had a slot along the bottom of his tbh that could be opened. There was a small gap there and the bees propolized it shut.

It seems they want to tightly control the ventilation in the hive if possible.

Regards
Dennis

[Kansas Volunteer]

Michael, your remarked earlier:

"A log hive is the opposite (in regards to direction) of a TBH or any trough hive. But I think the essentials of the success of a log hive are two factors.

"1) A top entrance so that the varroa that fall off don't get the opportunity to climb on bees entering the hive.

"2) A pile of detrius and a gap to it at the bottom of the hive. This is usually full of ants and wax moth larvae.

"I don't know that both couldn't be maintained in a trough formation, but most hives are not set up that way. In theory the SBB is an attempt to get the same effect as far as Varroa. They fall off but can't get back on, and it maintains a small, but useful, gap at the bottom. Spreading the bees horizontally may be MORE effective if there is an upper entrance and no bees where the varroa fall (SBB or slatted rack effect etc.)

"These effects (bottom entrance, no detrius etc.) are in my list of things we change from nature by the way we keep bees. I think we need to do more experimenting and research on the effects of such things."

The way I read it, you are saying that the accumulaltion of detritis at the bottom of the hive might not be a bad thing, as long as the bees don't have to wade in it? Is that right?

If so, it would seem a solid bottom board, not mesh, would be perfectly acceptable.

I'm beginning to wonder, too, if rather than worrying over ventilation so much, if maybe it would be better to think about insulation. A natural, or feral, hive would likely be built in something better insulated than a human-built box. Hollow trees usually have more than 3/4" wood surrounding the bees.

Anyway, I'm wondering what's best for the bees, rather than what's best for the beekeeper. On the other hand, bees be damned, I want to build a tbh just to see the thing work!

David S.

[Michael Bush]

>The way I read it, you are saying that the accumulaltion of detritis at the bottom of the hive might not be a bad thing, as long as the bees don't have to wade in it? Is that right?

I'm saying that all natural hives are that way and we don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. The fact is the bees WON'T wade in it, which makes it like the SBB where they CAN'T walk there. So there is a place for the mites (and the trash) to go that the bees won't walk in it. Perhaps it acts as a magnet for the wax moths. I think they reproduce at a high enough rate elsewhere and get eaten by the birds at a high enough rate that the population is probably constant. Maybe having the detrius in the bottom draws the moths to lay there instead of the hive? I think it would be another interesting research project.

>If so, it would seem a solid bottom board, not mesh, would be perfectly acceptable.

I'm not ready to tolerate the detrius in a hive until I'm convinced it IS a good thing. But a solid board with a SBB above it gives somewhere for the mites to go. I decided to just keep it simple and focus on coming up with a workable hive and skip the bells and whistles.

>I'm beginning to wonder, too, if rather than worrying over ventilation so much, if maybe it would be better to think about insulation. A natural, or feral, hive would likely be built in something better insulated than a human-built box. Hollow trees usually have more than 3/4" wood surrounding the bees.

True. It's thicker, but often the entrace is quite small and often it is quite large. The space inside varies a lot in size also.

>Anyway, I'm wondering what's best for the bees, rather than what's best for the beekeeper. On the other hand, bees be damned, I want to build a tbh just to see the thing work!

Any beehive is a compromise between the needs of the bees and the beekeeper.

[Michael Bush]

I guess part of my point in the previous post is that ANY beehive is a compromise anyway. Bees adjust to handle the entrance and space available especially in nature.

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

The entrance across the front of my tbh had about twice the area that a swarm prefers. The bees built the comb down to withing a bee space of the hive bottom and very little communication space was left on the sides.

Barry, used the optimum sized area for the entrance in his tbh. Preliminary reports from Barry indicate that the bees left much more space between the comb and the hive bottom.

Lot's of other factors could be involved. But it's interesting to think about how the bees might be shaping the hive environment.

Regards
Dennis
Thinking were getting close to passing the permacomb forum and I haven't figured out how to attach permacomb to a top bar yet:> )

[Russ]

Hey Guys, Just had another thought {DANGEROUS}, You might put the screen in the bottom of the hive and then install a removable slide out board kinda like the one used to close up the SSB. You could remove this board to remove the debrie without disturbing the bees. If you needed more ventilation you could slide it open slightly and close it if you don't think it is needed. What do you think?

[Hillbillynursery]

Since permacomb does not have a top bar you could use a good silicon glue. Liquid nails would most likely work good, but it is not food safe. LOL

OK, Here is some thoughts for my TBH. The bottom will be plywood. The sides out of 2X12s with the angle cut on each end to make the 22 degree slope and level it back off for the bars. It will be 16? inches wide(same as the narrow width of a lang) at the top. My bars will be flat with saw mark for the starter strip. I am going to measure it out and drill holes thru the top bar for supering. The holes will be in the center of the bar about 1/4 inch from the walls. I thought this would aslo help keep the bees from attatching the sides. My top bars will be a full inch thick.
Now to the questions to finish design. What is the best width for the bars? I was planning on just ripping 2Xs so they would be 1 1/2.
What size hole to drill in the top bars for suppering? Or maybe better put what size hole will keep the queen down yet give maxium space for workers to go thru. I do plan on having an upper entrance.
What length should I make it? I have decided it may be better to build my suppers to fit, but then again I would like to keep everything the same. If I do use the double long side as my length(about 40 inches) it would be about 2 1/4 deeps. This would not be to much of a length but would another length be better?
I am still debating with myself if I want to put a screened bottom in it. Those of you that have, Did you have the comb failure? Those that did not use SBB, did you have the comb failure? I want the SBB for might control but ( I forget names to easy) the one that did not have failure said that there was only the one 1 1/4 inch hole with no other venting. I know there was talk about wether or not the extra venting was good or bad for the bees to keep the temps right.

Happy Christmas and New year to all( as forgetful as I am I thought I better say it while I was thinking about it.
JC

[Kansas Volunteer]

Michael, thanks for elaborating on your earlier post. It makes perfectly good sense. I see where you are coming from.

I do think I'll go ahead and build my hive with a screened bottom, and also have a sliding bottom board to entirely close off the bottom. That way I can see what the bees seem to prefer and go either way.

I value simpliicty, but my curiousity and imagination often run away with me, and things get complicated. I'm trying to think the building of a tbh through fairly well, and try to keep things from getting out of hand!

The ideas presented here have been very useful.

My tbh will be my only hive, and my first hive in a long time. I don't want or need aother -- but who knows where this will all wind up -- and I'm trying to get the hive as right as I can the first time.

Is anyone here familiar with the Dartington Long Deep hive? Is there anything to be learned from it?

David S.

[Michael Bush]

>OK, Here is some thoughts for my TBH. The bottom will be plywood. The sides out of 2X12s with the angle cut on each end to make the 22 degree slope and level it back off for the bars. It will be 16? inches wide(same as the narrow width of a lang) at the top.

Sounds reasonable.

>My bars will be flat with saw mark for the starter strip.

Meaning you will put in a starter strip of foundation or wax?

>I am going to measure it out and drill holes thru the top bar for supering. The holes will be in the center of the bar about 1/4 inch from the walls. I thought this would aslo help keep the bees from attatching the sides.

Sounds reasonable. Let us know how it works.

>My top bars will be a full inch thick.

My last ones were 3/8" thick and worked fine. My new ones are 3/4" thick just for convienience.

>Now to the questions to finish design. What is the best width for the bars? I was planning on just ripping 2Xs so they would be 1 1/2.

I did my last ones 1 1/2" wide. The bees worked it well in the honey section but would try to crowd it in the brood section. They would ignore my starter strips and move it over 1/4"

>What size hole to drill in the top bars for suppering?

3/8"

>Or maybe better put what size hole will keep the queen down yet give maxium space for workers to go thru.

I wouldn't worry about the queen. She doesn't have any good reason to leave the brood nest.

>I do plan on having an upper entrance.
What length should I make it?

I'm going to leave the gap at the end of the last bar for the entrance, with a flat plywood top over that it shouldn't rain in. I made a bar for the end so I can just slide it sideways and control the entrance size.

>I have decided it may be better to build my suppers to fit, but then again I would like to keep everything the same. If I do use the double long side as my length(about 40 inches) it would be about 2 1/4 deeps. This would not be to much of a length but would another length be better?

I'm still experimenting on length of long hives. But from my experience and other and from taking bees out of odd places I'd say that 48" isn't too long. Since you're going for the width of a Lang and want to use supers, I'd go for 39 5/8" (two lang boxes long ways). Anything less than 32" I think is too short.

>I am still debating with myself if I want to put a screened bottom in it. Those of you that have, Did you have the comb failure?

I did an open screened bottom board on my last one and I did have comb failure. I don't know if it contributed or not.

I'm not putting one on this one, but if the dimensions work out well, I may put an enclosed SBB on the next one.

[Kansas Volunteer]

I think I've seen every picture of a tbh that's on the web. But I've found some dead links to one site, that was mentioned here in the discussion of tbh. The Tanzania style hives at this dead site were mentioned as being very nice looking. I can't think of the URL now, but it had XSCD, or something like that, in it. If anyone has saved pictures from that site, I'd like to see them, if you'd email them to me.

I'd really like to see pictures of tbh that aren't on the web, if anyone has any to share. I work better with pictures, sometimes.

Is there a bibliography of tbh anywhere? If not, would you be willing to help me start one, and post some references here, or email them to me?

David S.

[Michael Bush]

I have quite a few links. I will try to find them all, but I think they have been posted before. In case you didn't know, the difference between a Tansanian and a Kenyan is the sloped sides on the Kenyan and the perpendicular sides on the Tansanian. I will try one more straight sided one with less depth (standard medium with a 3/4 space at the bottom is basically a 1 x 8 (7 1/4")high), but so far I did one that was a standard deep (9 5/8" + 3/4" at the bottom) but I haven't had any luck with them. If the shallower one doesn't work then the other thing to try is a less wide one.

[Hillbillynursery]

Thanks MB,

>My bars will be flat with saw mark for the starter strip.

Meaning you will put in a starter strip of foundation or wax?

Yes, to place the starter strip into.

I did my last ones 1 1/2" wide. The bees worked it well in the honey section but would try to crowd it in the brood section. They would ignore my starter strips and move it over 1/4"

I have read that 1 1/4 inches wide worked good for the brood chamber but when they got back to the honey stores they would make it wider than the bar. So I guess maybe 1 3/8 inch may work better for booth. More input please.


I did an open screened bottom board on my last one and I did have comb failure. I don't know if it contributed or not.

I'm not putting one on this one, but if the dimensions work out well, I may put an enclosed SBB on the next one.

So you to are wondering if they help or hurt the comb. It just seems weird that the person that kept the hive simple was the one that did not have comb failure. But it may be that those of us that like to tinker with different designs may also like to tinker in the hive more. This is a worry of mine so I am going to put a glass end in the back of the hive so I can watch them work and progress without opening the hive.

Another thing is I am not worried about swarming. I will do my best to trap/collect any that do swarm. I am still trying to build my number of hives and not worried about getting a honey crop except a small amount for me. I hope to make my 2 hives into 6 to 10 this year taking into count that I hope to catch a couple swarms as well.

[Michael Bush]

>Yes, to place the starter strip into.

I think it works ok if the bees like the spacing but they ignor it if they don't. I'm going to put a 90 degree (45 on each side) piece on the bottom of the bars to try to encourage them to build in the right place.

>I have read that 1 1/4 inches wide worked good for the brood chamber but when they got back to the honey stores they would make it wider than the bar. So I guess maybe 1 3/8 inch may work better for booth. More input please.

If you want them all the same size, I think 1 3/8 is the best you can do. But maybe the right thing is to have two different spacings (since the bees WANT two different spacings). One for the brood (1 1/4") and one for the honey (1 1/2").

>So you to are wondering if they help or hurt the comb. It just seems weird that the person that kept the hive simple was the one that did not have comb failure. But it may be that those of us that like to tinker with different designs may also like to tinker in the hive more. This is a worry of mine so I am going to put a glass end in the back of the hive so I can watch them work and progress without opening the hive.

I had plexiglass on the back of mine with a board to cover it. It was educational to be able to watch without opening it. I didn't mess with it much, but the comb still collapsed. Certainly I think it's messing with it at all that contributes, but then what is the point of a hive you can't open?

>Another thing is I am not worried about swarming. I will do my best to trap/collect any that do swarm. I am still trying to build my number of hives and not worried about getting a honey crop except a small amount for me. I hope to make my 2 hives into 6 to 10 this year taking into count that I hope to catch a couple swarms as well.

I'm not that worried about it, but would like to have enough room to have a booming hive.

[Hillbillynursery]

If I choose to make 2 sizes of top bars how many of them need to be 1 1/4 for the brood?

Some said that 15 tbs were used for brood and then they started storing honey. Would this not be due to the size of the hive?

My hive will be narrower and shallower. So I would have to wait for them to start storing honey to know were to change the size. All those 1/8s or 1/4s of an inch add up and would effect the final length to a point.

[Michael Bush]

>If I choose to make 2 sizes of top bars how many of them need to be 1 1/4 for the brood?
Some said that 15 tbs were used for brood and then they started storing honey. Would this not be due to the size of the hive?

My guess is it would depend on the size of the combs how many they will fill with brood, but only time will tell for sure in any given hive with any given queen.

>My hive will be narrower and shallower. So I would have to wait for them to start storing honey to know were to change the size. All those 1/8s or 1/4s of an inch add up and would effect the final length to a point.

That's my theory. I made them half and half and figure I'll just move some of the 1 1/4" to the back and the 1 1/2" to the front when they start spacing them further apart. Then I'll know how many more 1 1/2" bars to make.

[BWrangler]

Greetings,

>If I choose to make 2 sizes of top bars how many ...

Experience with a particular tbh is the only indication.

Somehow the bees can determine just where, what shape and size the broodnest needs to be. Some factors that affect the structure include cavity volume, orientation, entrance size and position, and maybe even the swarm size itself.

Almost nothing is known about broonest structure in enough detail to make an estimation.

But structure is very important. I think broodnest frames should be marked so that their orientation can be maintained.

Some Thoughts
Dennis

[Kansas Volunteer]

Well, I'm still thinking hard about a tbh. I've been soing quite a bit full-size drawing, "thought experiments" and reading, and I've about decided that my 16-inch wide tbh, should probably be only 8 or 9 inches deep, rather that 10 to 12. So, I'm getting closer to Michael's dimension for his new hive.

Now, I'm curious about a slatted bottom board for the hive. The plastic grid at the CalKenyan tbh website is a nice solution, but I'm a woodworker, and have lots of scrap lumber to use-up.

Can anyone give me some ideas for ways to build the sbb for the tbh? (Man this is getting as bad as military jargon!)

What dimensions for the slats? the gap between? Should the slats run lengthwise to the tbh (probably less work to make)? Or, should they run crosswise?

David S.

[Michael Bush]

>Can anyone give me some ideas for ways to build the sbb for the tbh? (Man this is getting as bad as military jargon!)

Acually a SBB is a Screened Bottom Board. I believe you want a Slatted Rack.

Let's assume you have 1 1/4" bars then make the slats 3/8" less so they will be 7/8". Space them 3/8" apart and run them directly centered under the top bars. That way the mites fall through and not on the bars. You can make them as thick as you like but I wouldn't exceed 3/4". But you could do as small as 3/8".

Then you have to face the problem of differening widths of top bars. http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif Maybe if you made little racks that are about 8 or ten frames wide you could make some of each spacing and mix them up. Or just assume the brood nest is where the varroa hang out and make them all that size.


[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited December 16, 2003).]

[Hillbillynursery]

This is for Dennis(Bwrangler),

The comb on top bar 7 was drawn almost exactly opposite the rest of the comb in the broodnest. Drone size cells were drawn on the left side and down low. And worker cells were drawn on the right side. I initially thought that I had reversed the comb when working the hive. Early shots showed that the wood in this top bar had a unique knot and the orientation was correct.

The bees had trouble working with this comb. Some shots indicate the bees were attempting to rework the comb at different times. Combs on either side were drawn out smoothly and finished long before this one. The bottom edges remained ragged and this comb was never really finished off. Maybe one of the subcontractors goofed up. :> )

This is a quote from your OBs 2 page. Comb 7 threw your numbers way off, since comb 7 did not have much if any worker comb in it. The way the bees even refused to complete it is proof they did not want it there. Some say if you put your new TB in between 2 drawn TBs that you get good straight combs. And you had a comb fail that was rebuilt in 3 days to the point you could not tell which comb had collapsed. The bees have need for drones and will find/make a place to raise them. But since this comb was such a mess would it have been better to cut the comb and let the bees rebuild it?

Could you get more small cell by percentage by expanding the broodnest by adding TBs in the middle?
I say this because you know of the benifit of small cell and this should not disdurb the balance much in the favor of small cell.

You had another comb that had alot of drone or larger cells. This one could also be culled to lessen the number of drones and hope that you could get more worker and small cell. My idea here is to get the best of both worlds. Plus culling some drones may help with mites. I know I want 2 TBHs finished and ready for spring.

[BWrangler]

Hi Hillbillynursery and Everyone,

I am pleasantly surprised that someone has finally read the text and given my observations some thought. I will attempt to answer as best I can.

>Comb 7 threw your numbers way off, since comb 7 did not have much if >any worker comb in it. The way the bees even refused to complete it is >proof they did not want it there.

Actually, everything the bees did threw my numbers way off. I had expected the bees to drawn out mostly small cell sized worker brood. :> ) But bees being bees, did what they are genetically programed to do and didn't have any regard for my expectations which were mostly based on others speculations. The numbers I reported are not way off. They reflect, within my ability to measure, what the bees constructed.

The entire right side of the comb was larger size worker brood as was the finger like projections on the left. The bees were quite happy with the larger worker and drone brood in every location except were small cell sized worker brood would have been drawn if the comb been drawn like the surrounding comb. If the comb had been rotated, it would have matched the rest in percentage of drone and large cell sized worker brood. It may be hard to see that in the thumbnail photos of top bar 7 but I reported that fact in the text on my web pages.

Looking at those thumbnails, I think that if the comb had been finished off like those surrounding it, about twice the area of larger worker size cell would have been constructed and less than 20% of the whole area would have been constructed as small cell. The amount of drone comb would have stayed about the same. What do you see/think?

>Some say if you put your new TB in between 2 drawn TBs...
>And you had a comb fail that was rebuilt in 3 days to the point you >could not tell which comb had collapsed....
>But since this comb was such a mess would it have been better to cut >the comb and let the bees rebuild it...

My objective in that tbh was to watch what the bees did by themselves. Lots of details have to be worked out for managing comb in a tbh. I think I would have cut the comb off top bar 7 and given them another chance had I been managing the tbh.

>Could you get more small cell by percentage by expanding the broodnest >by adding TBs in the middle?

I'm not sure it's needed. The unanswered question is how much small cell sized comb do the bees need to handle the mites. With lots of help from you tbh guys that question should be answered soon.


>You had another comb that had alot of drone or larger cells. This one >could also be culled to lessen the number of drones and hope that you >could get more worker and small cell. My idea here is to get the best >of both worlds. Plus culling some drones may help with mites.

It appears the bees will only raise a certain amount of drones regardless of the amount of drone comb available. In my tbh the majority of the drones were raised just before swarming when the drone sized comb was mostly empty. After swarming, the bees quickly filled most of the drone comb with honey and capped it over in the broodnest area.

As combs with larger cell size were constructed, later, toward the rear of the hive, the queen laid primarily worker brood toward the bottom edges of the comb. Drone sized and larger cells were seldom used for rearing drones even though it was open and available there.

I'm convinced that the structure of the broodnest is very important. I don't know what effect expanding, culling, etc would have on it's function. And I think it may be harder to get the bees to change it if they have a choice. They may just draw out new comb approximating what was cut out.

A sure way to change the structure would be to rotate or insert drawn comb into the broodnest.

I will be trying out some management ideas this spring also.

>I know I want 2 TBHs finished...


It will be great reading about your tbh observations and experiences. Take lots of pictures and share the results. I'm sure the tbh beekeeping has lots of surprises left :> )

As our knowlege of the bees increases, I think a few people won't be content as 'beehavers' or even as master beekeepers but will become the best stewards of their bees.

Best Regards
Dennis

[Hillbillynursery]

Dennis,

I did not mean your numbers are/were off. By percentage comb 7 was out of proportion. When you figure comb 7 in with your total for the hive it increases the amount of large cell and drone comb. I to am of the believe the hive will not make more drones than it needs. I do understand why you did not cut it or remove it as the hive was for research. It was more of hypothedical question.

My main reason for TBHs is the cost of hives. Since your writing of such detail and the others words about their hives I see no reason that I can not run more hives than I can afford to buy. You and others have stated that TBHs tend to fill the upper part of the combs once they get to the main flow. I am thinking supering a TBH so that once the flow hits the bees can move the honey up. The first one I build will be the one with holes(on each end) in the TB for supering. I am also thinking I will place TBs in between drawn TBs to get straighter comb but this is a wait and see. I am thinking of making 2 TB with plastic foundation to place on each side of new topbars to get straight combs if I have a problem with cross comb.

I am full of ideas. I have to much time on my hands since I can not work. I have contacted someone to help me with a patent for a mechanic helping tool. I got the idea while trying to do a tune up on my full size van(I sure could not pay what the mechanic asked and I have rebuilt several engines). Between my wife, my brother, and myself we got 5 of 8 spark plugs changed and only 4 of the plug wires done.

[BWrangler]

Hi Hillbillynursery,

I didn't take any offense to your post. I just wanted to be sure that others understood the basis for the results. I would have thought that the results of my little tbh test and the measurements of bee size versus cell size would have generated more dialog, especially with small cell beekeepers. But there's been hardly a yawn. I appreciate your questions/observations.

I'm hoping that my observations will promote similiar kinds of observations by others. Then there will be lots of numbers to talk about. Hope you've got your pencil and camera ready for next season.

I've got a garage full of standard beekeeping/extracting equipment(sale next season). If I had it to do all over again, I would have used tbhs instead, even though they are more sensitive(comb failures) and somewhat less productive. I think the sensitivies will be worked out and production is easy to increase by adding more tbhs.

I've found them ideal for my purposes even though or maybe even because much about their management is pretty experimental. What a way to keep the mind active, designing and developing equipment and management that is geared toward what the bees naturally do.

I'll bet you will build the best tbh ever and have much to share as the season progresses.

Regards
Dennis

[Michael Bush]

My only comment is that I observed similar results. The bees were not as consistent in any way I expected, but actually built some worker brood smaller than I expected and some larger. The orentation was also a bit confusing. I've been considering how to measure orientation and I think it needs to be both how the "Y" is in the bottom of some cells in the center, but more so how the cells make a line on the comb. In other words, if you think of a sheet of foundation being horizontal and you draw a line under a row of cells the line is horizontal. If you turn that foundation 90 degrees the line is vertical. Now if you draw a line on any given comb and measure the angle in relation to the top bar you have the angle of the cells. This may be a more accurate way to measure orientation, since just the "Y" in the bottom of the cell is too short to measure accurately and it varies too much from cell to cell. Measuring a line averages things out, like measuring cell size across ten cells averages things out.
http://www.bee-l.com/biobeefiles/ian/comb.htm

Another thing that has been mentioned by another top bar hive person is that the spacing between the combs affects the size of the cells. I want to do some experiments where the bees don't have any guidlines and see how they space them and what size the cells are on what spacing. I think there is a relationship and we may affect the outcome by the spacing on our frames or top bars.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/agriculture/entomology/beekeeping/general/management/top_bar_faqs/top_bar_hive_lore.txt

"The topbar that has worked best for me is 1 3/8 inches in width.
I've used ones that are 1 1/2". The bees were able to center their combs
on these bars but a larger than average proportion of the comb was built
as drone comb. This size of comb promotes the production of an excess of
drones and the honey stored in these type combs is rarely capped. From
1 1/2" I gradually reduced the bar size each season. 1 7/16" bars worked
pretty well. The bees were successful in centering combs on those bars
but still there occurred too much drone comb in the overall hive. I
suggest that topbars be 1 3/8" in width unless this dimension causes the
bees some problems."

[BWrangler]

Hi Michael,

I will go back and take a look at comb orientation as you have suggested. Is it different on each side of the comb? Now, I wish I had shot both sides of each comb!

A good experiment would be to take Joe Waggles feral hive picture and plot some arrows on it showing comb orientation.

Regards
Dennis


[This message has been edited by BWrangler (edited December 19, 2003).]

[Hillbillynursery]

WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!

We passed the perma comb thread. I for one find TBHs to have many more things going for them than PC. That is not to say in the near future I will not try it as it will save the bees alot of work from making all that wax. Since TBHivers have not said much about the bees attatching comb to the bottom of the hive PC may work great to supper the TBH if that experiment works like I hope it does. One thing about it if that hive works it will give us the best of both ways of beekeeping. The broodnest will be all natural and the honey combs in frames for extracting. I think that not being able to extract honey from TBHs is one of the reasons they are looked down apon as unexceptable for modern beekeeping.

[Michael Bush]

>We passed the perma comb thread. I for one find TBHs to have many more things going for them than PC.

It's apples and oranges. PC is impervious to SHB and wax moths and that's enough to make it a dream. Then you add that the bees don't have to build it and I can wax coat it and make a permanant small cell brood nest...

>That is not to say in the near future I will not try it as it will save the bees alot of work from making all that wax.

Especially when you're establishing a new hive. It's a source of already made drawn cobm.

>Since TBHivers have not said much about the bees attatching comb to the bottom of the hive PC may work great to supper the TBH

If you want extracted honey. I'm going to try a medium depth standard width 3 box long TBH and if that works you could use PC anywhere in it you want and Top bars anywhere you want.

>if that experiment works like I hope it does. One thing about it if that hive works it will give us the best of both ways of beekeeping. The broodnest will be all natural and the honey combs in frames for extracting. I think that not being able to extract honey from TBHs is one of the reasons they are looked down apon as unexceptable for modern beekeeping.

Since I have a much larger market for comb honey, especialy natural (no chemicals in the hive) comb honey, I have not seen this as any disadvantage. Since there is also a market for clean wax, I don't see why it's a big loss to scrap the wax and strain the honey if I want extracted honey.

[Kansas Volunteer]

Perhaps it's because it's still somewhat early, and the coffee hasn't kicked-in, but after re-reading some of this discussion of top bar hives, my head is spinning a bit.

Would someone weigh for me the advantages and disadvantages, as you see them, of the starkly simple Kenyan tbh, with a solid bottom, nothing but a trough, and the more complex tbh, with a slattted and/or wire botttom.

Also, I'd really appreciate some detailed views on the need for sloping the sides, and the angle of the slope. I'm finding everything from verticle sides, as in the Tanzanian tbh, to 30-degree angles, measured off the verticle, or 60-degree slopes measured up from the horizontal.

Getting into tbh is proving to be extremely interesting to me. The more answers I find, the more questions I have. I LOVE IT!

David S.

[Michael Bush]

>Would someone weigh for me the advantages and disadvantages, as you see them, of the starkly simple Kenyan tbh, with a solid bottom, nothing but a trough, and the more complex tbh, with a slattted and/or wire botttom.

In some ways this is like discussing the advantages of a compound bow with sights over a simple long bow. Part of the atrraction of a bow, to me, is it's simplicity, so why complicate it? But on the other hand, the concept of a slatted rack is to help the bees with ventilation and provide cluster space for those "bee beards" you see on the front of hives in the summer. It helps cut down on swarming. Is it worth doing? Maybe, but I'm still trying to work out a workable TBH so I'm not ready to spend the effort to try to build something that complicated. The SBB will help with the mite drop, but again, I'm trying to work out the details and am worried that that contributed to my last failure. IMPOV the atrraction of a TBH is that it is simple and easy to make. If I make it complicated to make, there are more advantages to making a horizontal hive with frames instead.

>Also, I'd really appreciate some detailed views on the need for sloping the sides, and the angle of the slope. I'm finding everything from verticle sides, as in the Tanzanian tbh, to 30-degree angles, measured off the verticle, or 60-degree slopes measured up from the horizontal.

I tried the vertical sides and am going to try them again on the theory that if the combs aren't too deep and therefore too heavy they may work. I haven't seen a lot more attachments with vertical sides, but I think the structural integrity of the comb is the issure. Sloped sides more closely resemble the shape of natural comb. Most people seem to be using about half of a 45 degree angle which is about 22 degrees or so off of vertical. This would be 112 degrees from horizontal. The one I just built and the one I built 30 years ago are both 22 degrees. I don't know if this is the best angle, just that it approximates natural comb.

>Getting into tbh is proving to be extremely interesting to me. The more answers I find, the more questions I have. I LOVE IT!

That's what I've found. Lots of questions. I seem to find a lot of general info as if the dimensions don't matter that much, but I think the dimensions are critical, even if they aren't critical down to a 1/16 of an inch, they are critical when we are talking about inches. I would like more successful TBH beekeepers to share their hive dimensions and entrances and locations (shade sun etc). I've had more failures than successes so far.

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

The December issue of Bee Culture has an interesting article on 'Exposed Honey Bee Nests'. On page 41 is a picture of 'an abandoned exposed Africanized bee nest in Arizona'.

The size, shape and orientation of the comb are interesting. The combs are long and without any obvious burr comb or support, at least on the outside edges.

I'll bet we will get this comb failure thing worked out.

Regards
Dennis

[Kansas Volunteer]

I've just seen what will be the best top bar hive site on the web. (NO offence, BWrangler.) David McDonald of NM sent tme a link to a site he is building:
http://home.att.net/~mcdonald/bees/hive/

How about some discussion of his hives?

I'm thinking I'll go ahead and build two or three tbh of different designs and test them side-by-side this season. I had wanted only one, but this is getting to be too interesting.

So, I gues my new question for all the tbh fans is: What features would you like to see tested, or compared with other features?

David S.

[Kansas Volunteer]

John (jlk) how about telling us more about your hive? I'd appreciate all the details you can give -- measurements etc. What have you learned from managing your hive for three years?

David S.

[Michael Bush]

>How about some discussion of his hives?
They look ok. I think a 7/8" gap for the bottom entrance is too big. The slope is only 13 degrees off of 90. I don't know how that would work it's one of those things I'm still trying to work out.

>I'm thinking I'll go ahead and build two or three tbh of different designs and test them side-by-side this season. I had wanted only one, but this is getting to be too interesting.

I know what you mean.

>So, I gues my new question for all the tbh fans is: What features would you like to see tested, or compared with other features?

The slope issue is one that I think we should experiment on. Satterfield says it doesn't matter if there is any slope, but I think a more natural comb shape may help with comb collapse. My other experiment for a straight sided is to make the comb less deep and see how that affects it.

Another issue is ventilation. Does an open SBB or too much ventilation in general add to comb failure or help with it?

What length bar is just short enough to help with comb failure but just long enough to allow a good size comb?

[BWrangler]

Hi David and Everyone,

Thanks for the link to the new top bar site. I have bookmarked it and will be back again.

Web sites are easy to build and can be put on one of the free web servers. Newer wordprocessing software can easily be used to publish a document to the web and digital photography is cheap for web quality shots.
I've found the new wordperfect(no kidding)is easiest to use with no html translation errors.

I hope everyone experimenting with tbhs would build a tbh web page.

I know that the next one will be the best one, yet. :> )

Right now, I am really tossed about next seasons plans. My desire is to get into about a half dozen tbhs and sell my traditional equipment. But a few small cell beekeeping loose ends keep me tangled up eith standard equipment, maybe for a couple of more years. I am sure tempted to just cut those projects loose and migrate to tbhs.

Best Regards
Dennis

[Kansas Volunteer]

BWrangler, I like David McDonalds new site because there is so much information packed into it, and he's only just begun working on it. I'm a bliever in one picture being worth a thousand words, and his pictures certainly work in that way. There's also enough description to fill in the blanks. I expect as he progresses, it ought ot be quite a valuable site for folks getting interested in tbh.

I'm going to have to look into alternative site building software, I guess, I only know how to do it in html, and don't practice with that much at all.

I guess a lot of us are interested in answering some questions about tbh. It will be tough for any one of us to do controled experiements with all the variables that are being discussed. How about a list of variables that really needed to be tested, from you guys that have been at it for a while, and maybe we can set up some experiments, and give them a try this coming season.

I had originally wanted only one tbh, as I haven't had bees for a while, and thought it would make an interesting way to get back into beekeeping, but I've got the time and resources to keep more. If I build tbh with scrap material, and keep the cost down, I could probably go with four to six packages of new bees. If I got all the same kind of bees, form the same source, that variable would be fairly well under control, and then hive variables could be studied closer.

What do y'all think?

David S.

[dmcdonald]

Thanks for the encouragement about the site; I plan to add information within the next several weeks about another top-bar hive style that's used here in NM, used on a fairly large scale. It's got longer bars, and uses airspace between the bars and the roof, rather than insulation. I'll let you know as I add more to the site.

About entrances and ventilation: the use of a 7/8" entrance may be based on the assumption that a movable back board is always being used, and that therefore the (roughly) 10" x 7/8" front entrance is the only source of ventilation. But the way I'm using these hives, without the back board, there's likely considerably more airflow, because of the open space at the back. I am, BTW, using entrance reducers through the winter.

I have one hive, with a much smaller entrance, and closable round holes above that. In that hive, I'll be able to reduce the airflow considerably, if necessary.

But here's my thinking about ventilation. I keep reading about the importance of ventilation, about how a poorly ventilated hive is rough on the bees, because of the additional work they have to do to keep it cool in summer, and because of their need to control humidity in the hive. And, when I read somewhere that during winter the bees don't heat the hive, just themselves, and that they continue to need ventilation in the winter, it seemed to me better to err on the side of too much, rather than too little, ventilation. Seems the bees can handle bitter cold, even a slight breeze moving through the hive, but can't handle living in a stuffy space.

Tim Haarmann (my main local resource on these hives) told me not to bother with the back board (at least in this climate), and he also didn't seem very concerned about whether an entrance reducer is used in winter. I'll ask him what his general approach to ventilation is.

But I'm very new to all this, so this is all surmise and second-hand impressions. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
David McDonald

[Michael Bush]

My thought on the 7/8" is that it's hard to defend. I think we are all still working out the issues of ventilation in a top bar hive. With frames it doesn't seem as critical because you seldom (but not never) have combs collapsing in a framed hive.

[BWrangler]

Hello Everyone,

That 'cleat' on top of top bar hive ends is an elegant solution. It's much more flexible than my design and can easily be changed for different top bar widths and thicknesses. It also allows me optimize the hive volume at very shallow angles. Thanks for sharing.

My tbh was intended as a way to understand some of the inconsistencies I've experienced with my small cell sized beekeeping. I expected to keep it around as a curiosity. But I planned to focus all of my attention on my small cell hives. The 'confessions' were started from that perspective and are probably not a very interesting read for anyone without small cell sized beekeepering experience.

So, it's ok to skip the text and look at the pictures if they prove interesting. :> ) And pictures are surely worth thousands of words.

So I challenge everyone to take those pictures and share them on the web.I am willing to help anyone post them if they don't have a scanner or digital camera.

By the end of the little experiment, my focus had changed from small cell to top bar hive beekeeping. I'm hooked on them. They can't be beat for keeping bees biologically.

I'm looking forward to reading about everyones experiences and management, here as well as on the web.

Regards
Dennis

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

I'm going to try and model my tbhs ventilation on the parameters that are optimum for swarm acceptance. Further modifications may be necessary but it's a starting point.

Optimum conditions are an entrance located toward the bottom of the cavity. Tom Seeley and the Cornell folks indicate it shouldn't be any wider than about 4cm and occupy about 15 square centimeters. No upper ventilation, holes or light should occur toward the top of the cavity.

Just some thoughts
Dennis

[Michael Bush]

>Optimum conditions are an entrance located toward the bottom of the cavity.

Yes, but the hive is usually several feet off the ground. I think a bottom entrance that is a few inches from the ground, as it is in most beehives, would not be a choice the bees would prefer. Between mice and skunks it's much better to have it further from the ground. Also, "toward the bottom of the cavity" from my experience with hives in trees, is still between a foot and a couple of feet from the bottom of the hollow space, but 2/3 of the way down or so from the top. There is usually a foot of detritis in the bottom of an old tree hive.

>Tom Seeley and the Cornell folks indicate it shouldn't be any wider than about 4cm and occupy about 15 square centimeters.

Seems like most of the tree ones are a vertical crack in the tree. My experiece would be that they are no wider than 4cm but usually closer to 2 or 3 cm and often 10 cm long.

>No upper ventilation, holes or light should occur toward the top of the cavity.

I think that is mostly because they are looking for something that won't get rained on, but perhaps it also has to do with ventilation.

Where is all of this useful information? Is it on the web?

[BWrangler]

Hi Michael,

Most of the work was done at Cornell University. Roger Morse and Tom Seeley have worked with bee intelligence and have defined some of the optimum conditions of cavity selection in the process.

They have been reported in the University publications, Tom Seeleys book 'Wisdom of the Hive' and recounted by others in the journals. Lately, Richard Taylor elaborated on them in last years Bee Culture. I think Mark Winstons book also refers to them. That may be the easiest place to get the information in print.

Just about everyone uses them as a reference when discussing cavity selection and nest architecture.

Some of the other parameters concern colony height, wind protection, sun exposure and shade. But these are affected more by a tbhs location than its design.

Regards
Dennis
Thinking I will compromise on the optimum height requirements :> )

[txbeeguy]

I have a very slight/easy modification I plan for my TBH this year. I'm planning to install a new bottom board. For those of you who have seen the photos on my yahoo profile, you know that my 'bottom board' is removable. My current bottom board is in place now (during the winter). I'm planning on replacing it with a wider bottom board. This will have the 'net effect' of reducing the depth of the interior comb building space. Since I too, was one of the comb failure guys last summer, I figured I would limit the depth to which they bees can draw out the comb. By making the bottom board wider, it "raises" the floor and will reduce the distance between the "floor" of the hive and the top bars. The only other thing I will be doing is placing the hive in an area that starts to get shade around 3 p.m.
[Obviously, I going back to having a bottom board on year 'round rather than allowing the bees direct access to the screened bottom] - This is all in an attempt to eliminate any further comb failure.
--
I did not use my front entrance reducer this winter and I have noted the bees have reduced the entrance by their use of propolis.

[Hillbillynursery]

I was drawing out my plan for my TBH. A light bulb came on in my head. The question was how am I going to make splits from my standard hives. I am going to make a bar the length of the lang frame. I am going to center and screw my TBH length bar to it with a starter strip. This way my TBHs will have a good start. Any thoughts?

[Michael Bush]

That was my thinking last year and after all my combs collapses I decided the comb was too long. Maybe the comb being too long was not the cause, but that is my current theory. Also, most of the successful TBH's I've seen seem to have bars of about 15 to 16".

You could build a frame that actually fits the slope (if you have one) of your TBH and just tie some brood in like when taking feral bees. Just cut the comb to fit and tie it in with string.

[Hillbillynursery]

My total width is going to be the narrow side of a lang(16 inches). I am using 2 X 12s with slope cut to make 22.5 slope and to level the top which will bring it down close to 10 inches deep. The internal comb will be less than 13 inches. My only frames have plastic foundation so it would be real hard to cut them down. My thought was that 3 screws across the top of the long bar to hold the shorter bar would make it easy to pull out and place it in the TBH then use my trusty cordless drill to remove the screws and long bar. The only draw back I saw was I might have to trim some of the drawn comb off if the draw it to long.

[dmcdonald]

FWIW, on the topic of comb failure--I got in touch with Marty Hardison, who's been working with TBH for more than 20 years. He says it's absolutely imperative that there be either insulation or air space in the hive lid, to prevent this from happening. Maybe the dimensions of hive--bar length, depth of hive, etc., have a part in this too, but it seems to me that insulation (or the equivalent) should be present as a basic element of the design. Unless you never have hot days and strong sunshine, as we do here. The insulation may also affect wintering--I don't know.

I use 1" rigid foam insulation, but another beekeeper here just has the corrugated metal sit an inch or two above the bars, and this airspace is open on 2 sides. The roof is minimal, in the sense that it's nothing more than a piece of metal, which is somehow strapped on, and held away from the bars by wood spacers at each end of he hive. I intend to go measure and photograph these hives and post pictures online, as soon as I have the chance.

[Michael Bush]

>FWIW, on the topic of comb failure--I got in touch with Marty Hardison, who's been working with TBH for more than 20 years. He says it's absolutely imperative that there be either insulation or air space in the hive lid, to prevent this from happening.

It makes sense, especially if it's in the sun. Mine was in the shade, but maybe it makes a difference. Also my bars were thin, so the wood didn't add much insulation.

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

Tom, a tbh beekeeper in Aurora Co., has said the same thing about insulation or air space above the top bars. He raises the cover with a couple of pieces of lumber during the summer and avoids working his hive during the hottest days.

Regards
Dennis

[beekeeper28]

I went and looked at Satterfield's site agian after ready the last few post and most of his photos show metal roofing bent in a V shape and held on with cords. It looks like his have an "attic" space wich would allow upper ventalation.

[beekeeper28]

I checked Mr. Satterfield's site again after reading the last few post. Most of the photos on his site have a metal covering bent in a V shape wich allows for and "attic" space above the top bars. This would allow for upper ventalation.

Sorry for the double post. The other day it was not showing that my post was received. i have tried to delete the double post but can't so forum leader feel free to delete the double.

[This message has been edited by beekeeper28 (edited January 05, 2004).]

[txbeeguy]

Ahh, adding a couple inches of air spacing between the top bars and cover would be a very easy little mod for my TBH - so I'll definitely give that a shot too. Surly by doing this and raising the floor level and putting the hive in some shade, I'll be able to prevent comb failure this year!

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

Kansas Volunteers comments got me to thinking. My web page was written from the perspective of a small cell beekeeper fiddling with a top bar hive.

That was the case before my top bar hive experience. But my perspective has since changed to that of a top bar hive beekeeper fiddling with small cell. :> )

I have revised my web pages to reflect the change. So that hopefully anyone only interest in tbhs can skip the small cell stuff.

Regards
Dennis www.geocities.com/usbwrangler (http://www.geocities.com/usbwrangler)

[Kansas Volunteer]

BWrangler, I've only had a few moments to look at your site. WOW! I'm looking forward to studying it.

I've had to put beehives on the side track for a while, but should get back to it before spring. I'm really looking forward to messing with top bar hives.

[Michael Bush]

Back on the subject of insulation on the top. My first top bar hive, which I only used for a short time as an experiment, had 2 x 2s for top bars. I cut a 15 degree angle on the bottom of the bar for a centering device and rubbed the peak with beeswax.

Anyway, it occurs to me the recent TBH that had the comb failure had 3/8" thick bars as opposed to 1 1/2" (2 x 2). The 2 x2s were four times as much insulation (and four times as thick). The 3/8" bars seemed strong enough to support the comb, but I wonder if the 2 x 2 bars were better insulated and maybe the heat penetrating to the attchment of the comb is part of the problem. Of course I did also have a 3/4" lid on top of the bars in both the old hive and the new hive.

This, of course, is mentioned because of all of your references to "attic space" and insulation on the top.

[BWrangler]

Hi Michael and Everyone,

My top bar hive had a sloped roof which provided about a 5" high attic in the middle. It wasn't insulated. My top bars were 3/4" thick but had a 1/4" rabbit on the ends to keep them center. Structurally they were only 1/2" thick.

I have constructed new bars for my hive that will be 1" thick, 3/4" structurally and I will insulate the attic space in the lid.

For my new top bar hive, I had planned to go with the 1" top bars. I think I will increase that thickness per your experience.

The heat was a primary factor for weakening my comb and its failure. But the shape of the failure indicated that some tension was envolved. None of the combs failed at the intersection of the comb and the topbar. A reverse catenary shaped tear left several inches of comb along the top bar and down the side edges of the comb.

The only thing I can think of that would generate that tension would be a downward flex in the top bar. It might not take much if the wax was hot and fragile.

Regards
Dennis

[Michael Bush]

>The only thing I can think of that would generate that tension would be a downward flex in the top bar. It might not take much if the wax was hot and fragile.

I guess I would have thought if it was warm it would just stretch a bit, but perhaps the stress of a flex in the top bar contributed.

That was partly why I decided to go with the 3/4" bars, but also, it was because I wasn't going to try to put them in a Langstroth box anymore, so I thought it was just as easy to cut them from 3/4" stock.

I went with the 3/8" on the previous model so I could put the top bars in a Langsroth box and leave a 1/4" air space above the bars to keep them cooler and so the bees could patrol the area. I've had ants move into spaces less than 1/4"

[Michael Bush]

I was rereading Bwrangler's web site. I hadn't thought how to articulate it, because it's a bit confusing to try to say because it is counterintuitive and counter to "modern beekeeping, but as he has observed I've noticed that bees when left to themselves WITHOUT foundation build combs very quickly. When given drawn comb they do very well also. But they do not build foundation as quickly or redily as they build their own comb.

I am concluding more and more than foundation is EVIL! The bees don't like it, don't want to draw it. I don't think the bees dislike the plastic foundation because it's plastic. I think they accept it less because they can't rework it. The bees don't like any foundation that much because it's not what they wanted to build as far as size and orientation. There is much more of a feeling that they know what they are doing and are happy with it when they build it from scratch. There is much more of a tentative attitude when the cells are layed out for them.

I think we need to start a new movement. There are "conventional" beekeepers using large cell foundation and "small cell" beekeepers using small cell foundation. I think we need to start a "natural cell size" movement.

I'm experimenting with 45 degree slopes on the bottom of my top bars in both TBH and in standard frames. I just run the top bar through the table saw and slope it and then put a blank starter strip in. I also am cutting a bottom bar that is 45 degree angled. On Dadant deep frames I'm putting a 1/2" square piece in the middle as a diamond (with a point up and and a point down).

I've been doing just starter strips for years, and blank starter strips for a year now. I did sloped top bars 30 years ago but only did a 15 degree angle because that's what the cells are angled. I want to see how the 45 degree works. I also hadn't tried it on the bottom bar. When doing frames with starter strips I've had to treat them like top bars until they were attached on the sides and bottom. But the angle on the bottom helps get them to attach the comb there.

Here is some commercial version of what I'm trying to do now. But he doesn't have them for sale anymore. http://www.beesource.com/ubb/frown.gif http://www.charlesmartinsimon.com/pictures.htm


[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited January 13, 2004).]

[Kansas Volunteer]

I've been planning on making the top bars of my hive fairly thick, and cutting a 45-degree angle on the underside, as Michael is discussing. In most of what I've read, there are mentions of rubbing bees wax along the ridge of the top bar to encourage the bees to build straight comb.

I'm wondering how much wax to apply. Maybe I'm just trying to out-smart the bees, but it seems if the wax were applied, say 1/2-inch, on either side of the apex, perhaps the bees would be encouraged to build a row or two of cells upward, and thereby reinforcing the connection of the comb to the top bar.

Does that make sense?

David S.

[Michael Bush]

When I've done it I just rubbed it on the peak because that's where I wanted them to build. It worked fine and I didn't have any comb failures from it. Of course you always have to handle combs carefully no matter what. I suppose you could melt some wax and dip the peak in as far as you wanted the wax to go.

[Michael Bush]

The more I think about it, I think it's best just to rub a little on the peak, for bait, but let them build the attachments. The bees reinforce the attachments with a wax and propolis mixture that is probably a stronger bond than dipping it in melted wax. I think the bees will take care of the stregnth of it. Probably more so without a starter strip, which they would probably assume was already attached adequately by someone else.

[Oxankle]

I am in the process of making my first TBH. It will be straight sided, Langstroth frame wide, 1&3/8 x 7/8 bars, 32 bars long.

I have some experience with tin roofs and heat, so it will be painted white, the cover will be domed and open ended with a foil backed insulating panel over the frames. It will be placed under a deciduous tree for afternoon, not morning, shade and will face East. It will have an entrance hole 1 & 1/4 in dia in front, three side entrances 1" in diameter and two vents above the three side entrances. None of the side openings will be uncovered until bees are working past them in the hive and they will be closed in winter except for the vent nearest the front. The bees will be allowed to propolize that as they wish once it is opened the first time.

Top bars will have a wax-covered spline inserted in a center groove. I felt that the spline was less trouble and easier than trying to cut and fit foundation strips. The spline can be "painted" with hot wax after it is fastened in the top bar.

Question: Anyone have experience with these splined top bars? I can find only one reference to them here.
Ox



------------------
Oxankle

[Michael Bush]

>I am in the process of making my first TBH. It will be straight sided, Langstroth frame wide, 1&3/8 x 7/8 bars, 32 bars long.

I built mine 22 bars long and exactly that width with straight sides. All the combs failed.

>I have some experience with tin roofs and heat, so it will be painted white, the cover will be domed and open ended with a foil backed insulating panel over the frames. It will be placed under a deciduous tree for afternoon, not morning, shade and will face East.

Mine was in the shade and had two migratory covers and a 3/8" gap between the top bars and the lids.

>It will have an entrance hole 1 & 1/4 in dia in front, three side entrances 1" in diameter and two vents above the three side entrances. None of the side openings will be uncovered until bees are working past them in the hive and they will be closed in winter except for the vent nearest the front.

Why the side entrances?

>Top bars will have a wax-covered spline inserted in a center groove. I felt that the spline was less trouble and easier than trying to cut and fit foundation strips. The spline can be "painted" with hot wax after it is fastened in the top bar.

I just put in blank wax strips and they did fine as far as them not falling out and the bees following them for the most part. They wandered off a little toward the front on the ends.

>Question: Anyone have experience with these splined top bars? I can find only one reference to them here.

Not me. I've only done an angled top bar, which worked well and a groove with a strip waxed in it.

[dmcdonald]

I'm using the spline approach, and it seems to work well. The only advice I'd give is to avoid having it protrude more than 1/2 inch from the bar--I had some strange comb build on bars with too much protruding wood, and once I cut all the ridges down to 1/2 inch the problem seemed to stop.

[Oxankle]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

I saw the caution about having the splines protrude too far, so I am cutting splines that will hang down only about 3/8 inch and which will leave only a beespace at either end of the top bar.

I also saw the bit about collapsing combs. I am not sure how that will work out. The main honey flow here is late April to mid June, so it will miss most of the heat. I made the top bars 7/8 thick and will insulate. If I have any comb failure I will consider reducing hive depth, an easy modification.

As to the side entrances and vents, I am going on my observations.

Walter Kelley always advocated raising the top and allowing ventilatin thru the inner cover in summer. I usually did this in July and August and found that the bees seemed to appreciate it. I also used vents just above the hand-holds in upper supers and found that the bees used these as vents and as short-cuts to the comb they were working on.

From this I concluded that a single front entrance to a long hive was going to be inadequate once the hive was crowded and the bees were evaporating nectar. I believe that a drilled vent just below the top bars is preferable to cut top bars for a vent, and a drilled entrace close to the bees working area is an advantage. A permanent swinging closure on a screw permits management at each opening.

Now tell me what is the simplest stand to make, and how high? This will have to be a permanent installation--I am not going to move a hive that weighs over 200 pounds when full.
Ox

[Michael Bush]

I did the top bars in a double wide Lanstroth deep box (32 1/2" x 19 7/8") on a screened botom board. After comb failures I decided it was too wide, too deep and had too much ventilation.

Most of the successful TBH seem to be about 15 to 16 inches wide and sloped sides.

I don't like side entrances because it's more gaurd bees in more directions. If you want more ventilation down the side, why not just put more entrances on the SAME side and not on the end. That way the all face the same direction. Of course if it's an issue of ventialtion you could do a screened on on the back and an open one on the front. They will, of course propolize the screened one, but you could replace the screen or clean it from time to time. Pull it off and put it in the freezer and it will clean pretty easily.

[Oxankle]

Michael;
My theory is that once you give your bees a vent, let them manage it any way they want.

In the past when I have used top vents in supers the bees would propolize them to the size they wanted. When I used double hive bodies they would leave no more than a pencil hole in winter, but open it wide in summer. When they opened that vent wide is when I would lift the top and prop it up a bit.

As for the entrances, I gather from posts here that the front entrance is favored. I thought I would follow that design, but have provision for auxiliary entrances and vents TO BE OPENED ONLY WHEN THE HIVE WAS CROWDED AND BEES WERE WORKING IN THE AREA WHERE THE AUXILIARY ENTRANCES WERE.

I'm sure that you have seen beekeepers who moved a super back enough that the bees could come and go thru the rabbet. If you have used top vents you have also noticed that the bees will come and go thru them if they are working in that super.

One thing about this; I am flexible. If it appears that some of these openings are not needed or are a handicap, I can close them off.

I am still pondering the comb collapse. I have seen combs in the walls of buildings that were built at an angle in the opening. Some of these were 30 inches deep and l6 inches wide. I can only conclude that they were braced against the building walls.
Ox

[Michael Bush]

>One thing about this; I am flexible. If it appears that some of these openings are not needed or are a handicap, I can close them off.

I've thought about doing all the openings along the side. That still means they are only guarding one direction but can ventilate anywhere along the side. The one I just build I'm not putting any entrances in. I'm just leaving the front bar back 3/8" to make the entrance at the front. I could leave the back bar out to make one at the back. We'll see how it goes. I can always drill a hole somwhere.

>I am still pondering the comb collapse. I have seen combs in the walls of buildings that were built at an angle in the opening. Some of these were 30 inches deep and l6 inches wide. I can only conclude that they were braced against the building walls.

I have too and they were braced on the sides. If you build a vertical walled hive they will attched the sides also. Not badly but they will attach them and you will break those to work the hive. So the comb in a top bar hive has to be more self sustaining than comb in a wall or a tree because of that.

[Kansas Volunteer]

I don't know why I just now remembered this, after all the discussion about ventilation, but many years ago I read a little book about convential bee keeping in the tropics, and one point made in the text was about the need for extra ventilation for the hives. The methode advocated was to use a hive cover much deeper than normal, forming an attic above the hive. Bees were not allowed access to the attic and a large vent hole was drilled to allow air movement. This, in effect, is basically what's been discussed here recently in connection with prevention of comb breakage. Some of the tbh with peaked roofs essentially fit this description of attic space and vent. Has all the comb failure been in flat-top hives without much ventilation, or airspace above the hive?

[Michael Bush]

>Has all the comb failure been in flat-top hives without much ventilation, or airspace above the hive?

Mine was in a Langstroth box with a 3/8" bee space between the tops of the bars and the lid and the bees had access to it from the gap at the front and back bars. The hive was also in the shade. And it had a full open screened bottom board.

[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited January 20, 2004).]

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Hey Guys, its been a long time since i have been here. I think my last post was in September. A lot of "life" getting in the way. Have had lots of changes in my life's situation but things are starting to settle down and I think I shall be returning for the long haul again.

Michael Bush, are you prepared to sell bees this spring and are you already sold out?

The experiments will be beginning this spring as I discussed last spring/summer. I hope to have good luck with my designs that I have put together. Did anyone ever put together a maintained TBH FAQ like we were going to?

Anyway good to see everyone. USBWrangler, was it you that was going to be moving to my area? I would still be very intersted in getting together with you on a project or few.


Its going to take me a while to catch up on all the new posts in this thread...there are 5 new pages .. oy.

Scot Mc Pherson

------------------
--
Scot Mc Pherson
"Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me

[This message has been edited by Scot Mc Pherson (edited January 20, 2004).]

[Michael Bush]

>Michael Bush, are you prepared to sell bees this spring and are you already sold out?

I have some saved for you. Not that I don't want you business, but I know you really wanted a package of small cell bees and Buckey is selling packages of 4.9mm Carniolan bees at the same price as their regular ones. If you decide to do that instead, I understand, but please let me know one way or the other.

>Did anyone ever put together a maintained TBH FAQ like we were going to?

I'm sure no one has. We don't seem to hear a lot from people with successful ones, and that's a bit distressing. I'd love to hear more about the length of the bar, depth of comb and ventilation aspects of the people with successful TBHs.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Thanx for the news and the input about Buckey's Bees, though because I already told you I wanted yours and because we have been "friends" for at least 1 yr (minus my absense), I really would like to give you the opportunity to profit at least a little because of your helpful hand here. I am going to put together 3 hives, of various design based on a standard factor (for interchangeabilities sake).

I remember we had some private mailing about price and how you were going to supply the bees, but I don't recall whether you were going to supply package bees. Though something near the price of $150 per seems to stick in my mind.

I think the reason why TBHs have been a failure and only spotty success has been seen is because it takes a whole year to run a test cycle. If one wants to try a new design one must wait until the next year (or work hard at keeping a late swarm alive). I think this year after all of our collective experiences we will fair better, having learned from our collective past mistakes. I wonder if it would be beneficial to put together that FAQ/Intro to TBHs just to outline what we have learned so far and any ideas we might have for the coming year. Care to work on this together? I still have all that material I worked on, I just need to disceminate in publishable/digestible form.

------------------
--
Scot Mc Pherson
"Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me

[Michael Bush]

>I remember we had some private mailing about price and how you were going to supply the bees, but I don't recall whether you were going to supply package bees. Though something near the price of $150 per seems to stick in my mind.

That was for nucs. I really can't do packages being this far North. And I really will understand if you get the Buckeys instead. I can't compete on price with a big producer and you need packages for your TBH.

>I think the reason why TBHs have been a failure and only spotty success has been seen is because it takes a whole year to run a test cycle. If one wants to try a new design one must wait until the next year (or work hard at keeping a late swarm alive).

True, but if TBH's are that workable shouldn't there be some successful people who could share what they are doing that is working?

>I think this year after all of our collective experiences we will fair better, having learned from our collective past mistakes.

So far, what I THINK (but haven't had time to test because of reasons you said above) that what I have done wrong a lot of people are planning on doing. I can't say for sure that a standard width bar was too wide or a standard deep box was too deep, but I know my comb collapsed and it seems reasonable to make the comb lighter or have more attachment to the top bar per weight by having less depth. I plan on testing both approaches, but I'm afraid we haven't really learned much until we have a success. You CAN learn a lot from failures sometimes, but so far we have no successes to compare them to and it's not clear what the cause of the failures was. The current theories are:

Perhaps a lack of insulation and or ventilation on the top caused the attachments at the bar themselves to get too hot.

Perhaps a comb that is sqaure on the corners causes more stress than a more natural shaped one. (vertical walls vs sloped walls)

Perhaps a comb that is too long puts too much stress on the comb. *I* think this simply because I see more successful ones out there with shorter bars (in the 15 to 16 inch range)

Perhaps a comb that is not as deep would put less weight on the attachment and therefore less prone to failure.

Perhaps TOO MUCH ventilation in the hive caused the temps inside to be higher than the bees could maintain if they could better control it and this caused failure.

I don't know that we will work this out as a group. We are all taking different directions and alot of us are repeating what others have decided were their mistakes. But, of course, none of us is SURE about what is or is not a mistake at this point in time.

>I wonder if it would be beneficial to put together that FAQ/Intro to TBHs just to outline what we have learned so far and any ideas we might have for the coming year. Care to work on this together? I still have all that material I worked on, I just need to disceminate in publishable/digestible form.

I'd be happy to donate what I THINK. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what we KNOW for sure.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Alright. I have looked for buckey but I haven't found them.

You say they have carnolians, well maybe that's fine for the package, but I might still like to get some italian queens from you. I do have a predelection for italian bees, especially since my children will be playing in proxmity to the hives. Within 5 or 10ft that is, not directly playing with them.

I just want to do the research, I may still just get a few nucs from you, and develop some sort form of suspension system to suspend the nuc frames within the hive and have them removed later after the last of the brood hatches from them. Dunno.

[Michael Bush]

http://www.buckeyebee.com/price.html

"You will be sold standard 5.4 mm bee packages, if you wish 4.9mm packages--please specify."

[dmcdonald]

I'm surprised, if there's a widespread feeling that TBH have generally been a failure, or that there aren't examples of TB hives which work. I know two beekeepers here who are running lots of top-bar hives, one 50 of them and the other 100, with good success, no significant comb failure problems that I know of. One of these beekeepers is using the design I show on my site, and I still expect to have photos of the other design soon.

I do think the shorter bar is helpful, for keeping the comb intact. It would seem that the longer the bar, and the deeper the hive, the greater the shearing forces on the comb would be. I don't have much direct experience myself at this point, but I feel that my mentors here and in Colorado have demonstrated, in practice, that they have a working hive design.

I'd be happy to help in compiling a new TBH FAQ, if that's any help, and posting it online. Since there are indeed many approaches, just as in Langstroth beekeeping, it seems the best method would be to offer the spectrum of sensible opinions on each topic. Perhaps James Satterfield's TBH FAQ (assuming he's agreeable) could be incorporated with newer stuff from the thoughtful beekeepers here and elsewhere.

[Michael Bush]

>I'm surprised, if there's a widespread feeling that TBH have generally been a failure, or that there aren't examples of TB hives which work.

There just don't seem to be any people in this discussion with successful ones. I know OF successful ones, but don't know exact measurments etc.

>I know two beekeepers here who are running lots of top-bar hives, one 50 of them and the other 100, with good success, no significant comb failure problems that I know of. One of these beekeepers is using the design I show on my site, and I still expect to have photos of the other design soon.

Always helpful to have pictures.

>I do think the shorter bar is helpful, for keeping the comb intact. It would seem that the longer the bar, and the deeper the hive, the greater the shearing forces on the comb would be.

That is my current theory.

>I don't have much direct experience myself at this point, but I feel that my mentors here and in Colorado have demonstrated, in practice, that they have a working hive design.

I'd like to see more specifics on a workig design.

>I'd be happy to help in compiling a new TBH FAQ, if that's any help, and posting it online.

Sounds like you have access to more info on successful hives.

>Since there are indeed many approaches, just as in Langstroth beekeeping, it seems the best method would be to offer the spectrum of sensible opinions on each topic.

Unfortunately there are an infinite number of approaches in TBHs and most of them don't work. The ones that DO are the only ones of real interest, unless we know WHY the other ones fail.

>Perhaps James Satterfield's TBH FAQ (assuming he's agreeable) could be incorporated with newer stuff from the thoughtful beekeepers here and elsewhere.

I found his TBH site interesting, but I wish he would give more specifics on what NOT to do and perhaps a more detailed ananlysis of what is working. There are a lot of statements that most measurements are not critical, but I think some of them are.

[dmcdonald]

OK. I've got a design which I claim works--again, only one season to go on, for myself, but indirect evidence that the design has worked well for more than 20 years for others--and I have access to the people who've been using it.

So I'll do my best to get as much information as possible online about it. I had felt that the information I've put up is pretty exhaustive, with regard to dimensions and so on, but I do think it could be clearer, and it'd also be good to put up clear constructions diagrams. In addition to the precise details of the hive construction, more on management would be good. For me, that's mostly a matter of continuing to extract information from these local guys, and of course testing and clarifying it through my own experience.

Michael, let me know specifically which construction info you'd need more of. I'm not at this point able to re-draft the diagrams I have, to put them online, but short of doing that, I'd like to get my site to the point where you'd find it an adequate resource.

Is Satterfield not interested in continuing to maintain his site? Most of it seems to have been untouched for the last few years. I'll probably try to get in touch with him, but perhaps you already know what he's up to.

[Kansas Volunteer]

I've been very interested in the comb failure isssue. However, everything said about it is anecdotal, and not scientific. Scientists advise to never specify from the general, nor generalize from the specific. There are too many vairables involved in the tbh and comb failure issue to make any conclusions, as everyone here knows.

It could be that failures mentioned here seem so common, because only beekeepers experiencing failures post here. Those successfully keeping tbh may feel they already know enough to make the system work for them, and they see no great need to explore it further, and therefore don't post to sites like this.

The successful hives in New Mexico and Colorado are kept in dry cliamtes. Might that have any effect on comb failure?

There's a lot of stuff scattered around the web on tbh. Maybe it would be a good idea to copy it all onto one site, where it could be preserved, in case the original site owner decides not to maintain a site, or remove it from the net. In effect, this would be an e-library of tbh sites, where the "classics" could be preserved.

I've tried going through the pages of this thread to pick out bits of useful information. My life is such right now that I'd have a bit of time to spend working on some sort of FAQ, although I have found more useful information in the infrequently made statements, that in reply to the frequently asked questions.

I only stumbled across tbh by accident, while doing some general on-line research into hive construction, with the idea of getting back into bees this spring. I suspect there might be quite a few others like me out there. A well constructed site with lots of meta terms might draw more of the tbh curious, and expand the base of experience.

David S.

[Michael Bush]

>I've been very interested in the comb failure isssue. However, everything said about it is anecdotal, and not scientific. Scientists advise to never specify from the general, nor generalize from the specific. There are too many vairables involved in the tbh and comb failure issue to make any conclusions, as everyone here knows.

That is exactly my problem. I only have theories based on what I know about structure, bees and wax, but they are just that: theories. We do know that the shape seems to make SOME difference to how the comb supports itself, but the SIGNIFICANCE of this is hard to quantify. We know that hot wax will not support as much weight as cooler wax, so ventilation and insulation may be contributing factors. We know that the bees cool by ventilation and evaporation, so it may also be that there are climactic differences in play.

>It could be that failures mentioned here seem so common, because only beekeepers experiencing failures post here. Those successfully keeping tbh may feel they already know enough to make the system work for them, and they see no great need to explore it further, and therefore don't post to sites like this.

That's my assumption. I know there are lot of TBHs in Africa and other underdeveloped countries and a lot here and there in the US. But they probably have a system that works and don't worry about it.

>The successful hives in New Mexico and Colorado are kept in dry cliamtes. Might that have any effect on comb failure?

Basically a hive's "air conditioning" is a what the people in Colorado call a "swamp cooler". In other words it cools by evaporation. The bees haul water and evaporate it. You'll notice that swamp coolers are popular in dry climates, and not in humid climates. Mostly because they don't work effectively in humid climates. So, yes, the humidity could play a big part in comb failure.

>There's a lot of stuff scattered around the web on tbh. Maybe it would be a good idea to copy it all onto one site, where it could be preserved, in case the original site owner decides not to maintain a site, or remove it from the net. In effect, this would be an e-library of tbh sites, where the "classics" could be preserved.

Probably a good idea, but you would need permission from the site owners if you are going to duplicate their work somehwere. Probably most won't mind if you ask, since they are already sharing it.

>I've tried going through the pages of this thread to pick out bits of useful information. My life is such right now that I'd have a bit of time to spend working on some sort of FAQ, although I have found more useful information in the infrequently made statements, that in reply to the frequently asked questions.

Sounds great.

>I only stumbled across tbh by accident, while doing some general on-line research into hive construction, with the idea of getting back into bees this spring. I suspect there might be quite a few others like me out there. A well constructed site with lots of meta terms might draw more of the tbh curious, and expand the base of experience.

I thought I "reinvented" the top bar hive. I based my first one on vague referenes to the Greek basket hives. I knew it wasn't my original idea, but I didn't think anyone else was building them. Several years later I saw one in ABJ.

[Oxankle]

Fellows:
I've gone over and had a look at Dmcdonald's site, the pictures and the specifications for the hive. That is an elegant design.

The design takes a bit more cutting; to get the side boards to fit flat against the floor and top bars you have to cut the slope on both edges. Of course the end boards have to be cut as well, but this is no big deal.

Looking at the hive in terms of construction materiel, one ten foot plank will build the box-sides, ends and bottom for a 26 bar hive if you will use scrap 2 x6's or similar material for the ends.

I am going to get started on one of these ASAP.
Ox

[Michael Bush]

http://home.att.net/~mcdonald/bees/hive/ This hive is in the range of what I've seen with successful hives. The bars are only 16" (most seem to be between 15" and 16"). The sides are sloped. Not as much as most, but off of vertical. We have discussed insulation in the lid, which this one has. I've done the groove down the middle for a starter strip on bars with farily good luck. The design is in the range of what I am begining to think is good for a TBH.

I made my box from four peices of wood and didn't make any angles on the edges. I wanted to keep it simple. It's two 48 3/4" long 1 x 12s for the sides, two 15" long 1 x 12s for the ends, and one 48 3/4" long 1 x 6 for the bottom. Pretty much it's the same assembly as this one: http://nanaimo.ark.com/~cberube/images/ktbhplan.gif

Except the sides are lined up on the edge of the 1 x 6 botom board and nailed through the 1 x 6 into the sides. It only requires cutting five boards to length to make the box.

I don't know that it would work any better, but it was very easy to make.


[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited January 22, 2004).]

[txbeeguy]

Comb Failure.
The conclusion I came to, is that it all has to do with the amount of suspended weight (per linear inch) that the wax has to support. Certainly this is directly affected by temperature.
My point here, is that the length of the bar and the point of attachment, along the bottom of the top bar doesn't play a significant role in the comb's failure.
At least speaking from my experience, my comb failed about five or six inches beneath the bottom of the top bar. I used grooved top bars and waxed in place starter strips; the bees took off with these starter strips and made beautiful, straight comb. They did a wonderful job of building and attaching the comb to the bottom of the top bar (without attaching any comb to the sides of the hive). See pictures in my Yahoo profile: http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/txbeeguy
The comb was plenty strong at the point of attachment. Where I ran into trouble was with the depth of the comb. At the point of failure (about six inches from the bottom of the top bar), the comb had a great deal of weight suspended below that point. This weight took the form of sealed brood and attendant house bees (and perhaps a little stored honey). The comb tore in an almost uniform line at the point of failure - this happened on about four combs (all brood comb).
While I won't argue that a 15 or 16 inch long top bar wouldn't be stronger than say a 19 inch long top bar (Langstroth length), what I do believe is that the length of the bar isn't nearly as critical as the comb's depth (and thus, the amount of suspended weight per linear inch).
This summer, I will limit the depth to which the bees can draw out comb, and I believe this will solve the problem of comb failure. I also will incorporate an air space between the "roof" of the hive and the top bars. I will also keep a solid bottom board on year round (i.e., not screened bottom) in an effort to explore MB's idea about hive cooling.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

>>> The conclusion I came to, is that it all has to do with the amount of suspended weight (per linear inch) that the wax has to support. Certainly this is directly affected by temperature. <<<

Absolutely, but there are other issues that factor into the stress factor. Strictly speaking the vertical linear weight is the princple factor I believe just as you are saying, but what michael has stated is also a factor for a few subtle reasons. One might note that the dimensions michael is recommended very closely reflect my recommendations for this next years batch of hives. The length of the top bar inderectly effects the weight that can be supported vertically. You see, the comb in a direct vertical line is not the only weight bearing comb for any specific square inch of honey/brood/bee laden comb. Honey by far is the heaviest load within the hive, but this is beside the point. If one draws a square, with and then draws an inverted triangle so that it points downward, this is the princple weight bearing portion of the comb for the bottom of this triangle, not necessarily a straight line, and in fact most certainly not. The comb which bears the most weight of the bottom of the triangle is actually along and adjectent to the legs of the triangle. This is a demonstratable fact which one studies at school as part of any structural engineering course. Its the same as a pile of sand or dirt. The dirt which bears the most weight within a pile of dirt is not the center of the bottom of the pile, its actually a ring of dirt which resides a fair distance away from the the center of the pile.
Now taking this into considering, if one builds a Tanzanian (Squared Side) TBH, the edges of the comb only have the benefit of wieght bearing support from the comb farther towards to the center, half of the supporting triangle is missing. Therefore in this design the ends of the top bar are supporting the most weight, and being at the ends and not at the center, have a better chance of zipping off the top bar. The bees counteract this by attaching comb to the walls of the hive, which we have seen causes the comb to fail when we interrupt this mechnical stability.

2nd, depth is not the only factor is determining the strength of the supporting structure. One needs to remember that wood expands as it gets warmer, and one can also assume that so do honey stores. But the comb and the wood expand at different rates. I feel certain that is one were to try to build a top bar hive that was built with say 5ft long top bars, but was only 3 inches in vertical depth, in the summer months you would find one of two possibilities (either of which is fatal). 1) either the comb would shear directly from the top bar as a result of the bar expanding and all or most comb would be sheared from the top bar from one side, or the comb would remain attached, but would be cracked at fairly regular intervals. This is an extreme example, but it demonstrates of top bar length MIGHT contribute to comb failure.

What I propose, and what I proposed often enough in the past (without having the opportunity to try it myself yet), is to build a Kenyan TBH with a top bar length of 16" (internal dimension), with a hieght to not exceed 10" of comb. If one builds the hive with 30deg or more of slope from vertical, this allows any portion the comb to have adequate and maximal support from the comb above it. 30deg being the minimal slope because "prefect" cells of honey comb are precisely devided into 6 vectors, the same as uniform marbles are. Place one marble on a table, and place 6 matching marbles around it, and you will find that the marbles devide up precisely into the same 6 vectors. The weight bearing vector of any given cell is the 60 deg of comb facing directly upward. When cut in half this is 30 degrees to either side of the vertical line. I suggest 30deg as a minimal slope because exceeding that cannot cause harm, but not attaining 30 deg reduces the weight bearing ability of the edges of the comb. My plans include using slopes of precisley 32.5 degrees, but this is more a matter of convenience for me because I want the bottom board to be of a given convenient width, and also facilitates exceeding the minimum 30deg.


>>> I will also keep a solid bottom board on year round (i.e., not screened bottom) in an effort to explore MB's idea about hive cooling. <<<

This is also a fine idea, the abcense of a bottom board facilitate an increase of the internal hive temperature. Basic everyday common sense, warm air rises, cool air drops. By removing the floor of the hive, we are allowing the heat to be trapped in the hive, because much of the cooling effect the bees and evaporation have is lost because the coolness drops out of the hive. Ventilation should be provided from the side closer to the top of the hive if possible, this will allow the warm air to escape and trap the cooler air within the hive.

Granted not many hives are perfectly sealed, but small cracks around the edges are quite a different thing from a missing floor. This may also partially explain the bees behavior to seal all cracks, they may be insulating their home from drafts. Although it has been practiced that we place hive entrances at the bottom of a hive, it might be interesting to experiment with entrances in the middle or above the middle of the hive, allowing yet more heat to escape and allowing the bees to trap more cool air.

So my suggested "INTERNAL" dimensions for a KTBH are 16" or 40cm Top Bars, with a depth of 10" or 25 cm using 30 deg of slope or better. The number of frames one uses is a matter of personal taste, regional considerations, convenience and purpose of hive. (i.e. a TBH nuc might only be 3-8 bars while a real honey cow might exceed 40 or 50 bars. If one were to shorten the top bar so that the slope of the hive meet at the bottom of the hive in a traingle, one would find they have an equilateral traingle.

Ok enough of my autistic gibberish. I hope this proves helpful into understand why not only the vertical depth of a hive is not the prime factor in comb failure, but a prime contributing factor.

Again as Michael has stated in the recent past, this is what I "think", but I am pretty damned sure my thinking cap is on straight.

------------------
--
Scot Mc Pherson
"Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me

[Scot Mc Pherson]

I have suddenly changed my mind about providing the sole entrance to the hive at the top of the hive. During the winter months, this would have the very same effect, trapping the cold air while letting the warm air escape.

I think perhaps we might continue using bottom entrances, but facilitating pluggable vents higher up on the front of the hive.

I dunno, hmm, this gives me something to think about. Multiple entrances would facilitate a draft condition.

[dmcdonald]

Thanks, Scot, for the analysis of the comb dimensions from an engineering perspective; I'm going to have spend some time thinking through your posting. I'd had a gut-level sense that a longer bar might make the comb more vulnerable, but hadn't been able to articulate why. Still can't, but maybe after I digest your posting I will.

I've just posted some pictures of a screened bottom-board TBH from Marty Hardison. The area under the screen is enclosed, and there's a board which can be inserted when appropriate to eliminate the extra volume contributed by the mite-drop space. This is his first effort at a screened TBH, and he expects to modify the design eventually.

Anyway, his approach certainly would address the problem of open bottom-boards causing overheating in the hive, and it goes even further in that it lets you get rid of the drop space entirely. His emphasis is more on volume than on temperature, but the two seem very closely intertwined. With an open bottom-board, you are in some sense giving the bees a hive of infinite volume (or very large volume, depending on your cosmology), which would indeed cause some thermoregulation troubles.

Also, I've made a small correction to the stated bar length, on the page describing the basic hive--I'm actually using 16.5" bars. The extra half-inch makes them easier to lift off the hive.

Here's the new stuff: http://home.att.net/~mcdonald/bees/hive/hardison/

[Michael Bush]

My two experments in TBHs this year are from two points of view.

The first is the angled walled short barred one already discussed on the theory that the shape of the comb distributes the weight and that the longer width comb puts more stress on the comb. Also it's because all the successful ones I've heard of are close to these dimensions and I thought I should benefit from others experience.

The second is based on the theory espoused above, which may also be valid. That the weight of comb in releation to the attachment at the top is the secret. This is a three box long, medium depth Langstroth box with 19" top bars. They may both work.

When I built model rockets as a kid the usual rules for stability were that the center of gravity was in front of the center of pressure. This meant moving the center of gravity up by using weights in the nose, or moving the center of pressure back by putting fins on, was the conventional method of attain stability. Basically this is the model used by an arrow. I, being the unconventional one, proposed that a bottle rocket uses a different model where the center of thrust (a factor not taken into account in the previous model) is ahead of the center of gravity. In this model you move the center of gravity WAY back (the opposite of where you were moving it in the previous model) and the center of thrust way up. I built several rockets on this principle that all worked beautifully. This model works, as anyone who has shot a bottle rocket already knows. My point is that a model may work but not take all the factors into account.

It may be that a long bar in a shallow box may work as well as a shorter bar in a sloped box.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

dmcdonald,
Sorry about that. Pretty much what I am saying is that Michael and I fairly agree on what is a good size and shape of top bar comb.

The weight at the bottom of the comb is distributed along the top of the bar in 60 or more degrees. A square comb doesn't benefit from the structural stability of this triangular shape and has a better chance of failure, that's all.

Limit the length of the top bar to about 16" and use 30deg or more of slope on the side and I think you'll be ok.

[Michael Bush]

On the subject of a long bar and a short comb, my failure was a wouble wide standard Lanstroth deep box. It was 9 5/8" + 3/4" for the bottom board deep and it failed. This is 10 1/8" from the top of the box to the bottom board with a bee space above the bar and a 3/8" bar. So from the bottom of the bar (where the comb starts) to the bottom of the comb (3/4" above the bottom)the comb was 9" deep. My current experiment in that direction is a standard medium wich is 6 5/8" + 3/4" for the bottom board. This is 3" less depth in the comb. I would hate for someone else to go through my frustration by repeating my mistakes.

[txbeeguy]

Michael, please describe WHERE your comb failed.
I understand from your posting the comb was on the order of about 9 inches deep (from the bottom of the top bar) but I'm interested in knowing the location of where the comb broke (i.e., distance from the bottom of the top bar).
Obviously, what I'm trying to determine here, is the amount of suspended weight below where the break occurred.
I'm sure there are a lot of variables due to temperature considerations (length of high temperature exposure, etc.) as well as perhaps the age of the comb (with "new" wax probably yielding at a much lower temperature than old wax). But if I can understand the different comb configurations and the locations of where failures happened, then it may be possible to establish some parameters for comb depth verses temperature ranges.

[Michael Bush]

The comb broke in different places on different combs, but mostly it seems like the lower corners would wobble some when handled and then the comb would break usually with a reverse arch in various places across. In other words the broken off piece would have a rounded portion on one end and the remaining piece would be the opposite. Sometimes most of the comb came off sometimes part of the comb came off but usually there was that reverse arch. The fact that it wanted to break at that arched angle leads me to believe that the angle has to do with how the weight is suspended and distributed. If you drew a straight line across the broken side's arch it would be about a 60 degree angle. But it wasn't a straight line. Where the arched tear reached the top bar then it tore the rest of the way across the top bar. Pretty much once one went they all went one after the other like a row a dominoes.

That's the best I can remember. At the time I was more trying to figure out what to do with it than studying it. I ended up scrapping the honey and cutting the brood and putting it in medium frames with rubber bands.

[BWrangler]

Hi TxBeeGuy and Everyone,

My comb didn't fail in a straight line at the top bar. It failed in a curved line about 3 to 4 inches below the top bar. Once the initial combs failed,they leaned against adjoining combs and they generally failed in a straight line a couple of inches down from the top bar.

Reducing the load with shorter top bars and shallower boxes could solve the problem.

I have some unproven concerns about overwintering bees on the shorter, shallower combs, especially in a steeply sloped hive. But my winters and early spring are probably very different.

I will put insulation and wider, thicker top bars in last years hive.

This years new hive will have shorter, thicker top bars. But the hive will be six inches taller. It will be an interesting test. I've got my skill saw ready just in case I should've made it six inches shorter instead. :> )

Regards
Dennis

[Michael Bush]

It hasn't been a really bad winter, but I overwinterd a three box long medium depth hive and it's doing great. It's 33 medium PermaComb frames long with three migratory covers and a full length screened bottom board closed up with cardboard.

My slope sided one is basically the same depth as my first one. My shallower one will be the same as my long medium hive except with top bars. This is 3" shorter than the first one.

[Oxankle]

Fellows;
I want to chip in with an observation.
Before I bought this place the former occupants allowed a swarm to stay under the soffit by the back door.

The marks of the comb are still plainly visible, and last night I counted comb. There were twenty five combs, solidly attached to a depth of five brick (Twenty two inches?) on the house side. Outer edges curl and were probably cross-combed at that outer end. The combs were pretty straight where attached at the soffit but wobbled just a bit as natural combs do.

I have seen other deep comb. The evidence is that undisturbed comb can be built to a great depth. If handled, unsupported fresh comb will "wobble at the edges" and fail
just as described here.

My conclusion would be that we might just leave our bees to their work, taking only the surplus honey we want until they have a complete season in the hive. Let them attach the comb to the hive as they want. During the first winter the bees will work their way to the back of the hive and the queen will lay in the empty comb nearest the remaining stores, moving forward until the hive is filled again.

At that point the entire brood nest will be filled with dark comb which should be capable of supporting itself if carefully separated from the hive body. If it is separated with a thin knife (I am thinking a serrated bread knife here) the comb would quickly be reattached and supported by the bees. Work with the bees, not against them.

I am going to use FGMO as the principal means of mite control. Even If I decide to use Apistan I should not have to remove comb.

The drawback to this is swarm control, but there are things we can do, such as trading sites with a weak colony.

I just completed another TBH, this one built to Dmcdonald's specs. My miserable carpentry skills and boneheaded work habits caused me to cut the bottom board with side angles, so the whole thing is only 25 bars long. I sure cussed when I had to cut off the extra three inches, making a side board of the bottom.

However, it is still a very smart little hive and I am looking forward to comparing it with the Tanzanian model. The straight sided, 32 bar hive has more than twice the volume of the tapered hive. Now let's see if I can manage them.
Ox

[Michael Bush]

I think you are right about the maturity of the comb. Young comb is much more fragile. Maybe if they make it through the first year they would be much stronger. But it's difficult to manage a hive if you can't open it up and go through it.

I also think the deep comb I've seen always has some attachments to the side. Not so much to hold the weight as to stabilize the comb from moving.

[BWrangler]

Hello Everyone,

Joe Waggles feral hive picture is a typical example of tall expanses of unbraced comb inside a wall. The width is within the range of our tbhs.

I'm approaching next seasons management of my deeper tbh along the lines Oxankle has mentioned. I will work the hive more extensively in the early part of the season. At that time the comb is lighter and easier to correct. Once swarming is over, I going to let the deep hive 'mature'. I'll only harvest a few combs from the rear if additional room is needed.

That's a tuff job for a tbh mangler like myself. :> )

I might have to build a tbh observation hive for my patio. That might keep me from messing around with the other tbhs too much. :> )))

Regards
Dennis
I must have been a problem child whose always getting into things.

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

I've been thinking about the configuration in my tbh as the bees got ready for winter. They packed the larger cell sized areas of the brood with honey and then expanded honey storage toward the rear of the hive. The small cell core area of the broodnest was left open for clustering, etc.

From this configuration, it appears that the bees were prepared to move horizontally for feed during late winter and early spring.

Bees in my standard hives do not move vertically during the winter unless they are starving or the cluster is too small.

I inspected my patio hive last week. They have about 2/3rds of a frame of brood. And it's on the same frame as the last patches of brood were reared on in October.

When the weather permits, the bees will break cluster and move honey into the core area of the broodnest. In my standard hives most of the movement is horizontal rather than vertical. They go to the warm side of the hive and get most of the honey there rather than above the cluster.

Maybe the advantages of winter vertical movement is over stated. An optimum vertical heigth might not be as large as I think depending upon the volume and shape of the cavity. It might be closer to 12 or 15 inches in our tbhs rather than 20 or more inches.

It will be interesting to see what Barry's bees have done when he gets into them this spring. His hive was about 24" wide and almost that deep. The bees didn't build comb to the bottom of his hive according to his last report. They stopped about 2/3rds of the way down and expanded horizontally.

Some thoughts
Dennis

[txbeeguy]

BWrangler wrote:
> It might be closer to 12 or 15 inches in our tbhs...

That's kind of what I'm thinking.
Since MB's comb broke and it was no more than about 9 inches deep (but with verticle sides), there can't have been THAT much additional suspended weight below the initial point of failure. I'm thinking of limiting the depth of my comb to the 12 inch (+/-) range (and of course, keeping the bar length at 19 inches). Since the comb is more-or-less triangular shaped, a 12+/- inch depth should be sufficient to prevent comb failure. Plus, this year, the brood comb that failed will be on it's second year so hopefully it will be a little more stiff.

[Michael Bush]

>Maybe the advantages of winter vertical movement is over stated. An optimum vertical heigth might not be as large as I think depending upon the volume and shape of the cavity. It might be closer to 12 or 15 inches in our tbhs rather than 20 or more inches.

My medium hive that is overwintering fine right now, is only 6 5/8" deep. (7 1/2" counting the space over the bottom board). The combs are PermaComb and they are only 6" deep. I think the bees are quite versital at moving vertically or horizontally over winter.

[BWrangler]

Hi Michael,

That's good to hear. It certainly goes against what I have read, but whats new? :> )

Looking at how few communication holes existed in my tbh. It might be easier for a cluster to move horizontally across the bottom of the combs rather than horizontally around the top of the combs.
The bees certainly wanted the cluster at the bottom and not half way up.

I have wondered about the wintering abilities of a tbh, but I've been surprised by these tbhs before. Maybe they will winter even better in them. :> )

Regards
Dennis

[Oxankle]

dmcdonald or others:

I've been doing some measuring and thinking.

The slope-sided TBH I built to dmcdonald's specs is only 25 bars long after I cut it a bit short. Even at the full length it has a volume equal to about what I leave for brood nests in conventional hives.

Now, as dmc says that there are people making a living with these hives, I want to know how they manage them. This has got to be an art.

Do you let the bees fill the hive in the fall and raise brood in all of it the next spring?

Do you remove some empty brood combs to make room for new comb just before the honey flow?

How do you manage the hives so that they go into the winter strong and well provisioned?

Do you super these hives?

If there is a fall honey failure, how do you feed?

I can see ways around all these difficulties, but I do not want to reinvent the wheel. Someone is successful with these hives and probably would not mind telling us how it is done.
Ox

[dmcdonald]

Oxankle and others,

I'm still learning the management of these hives, so I don't have a whole lot to say, but I have asked Marty Hardison to summarize his management principles for me via email. I'm also due to talk with Tim Haarmann soon.

One thing that Marty emphasizes in one of his old writings (there's a link to it on the links page on my site) is that hive design is local. He believes this hive design is especially suitable for conditions around here. Interestingly, he's going to be working this summer on starting an almond pollination operation in California, and will (I assume) be building a fairly different top-bar hive for those conditions. Here, at 7000 ft above sea level, and with minimal rainfall, a small hive makes sense. There, at sea level, with abundant nectar and with the necessity of moving the hives often, I imagine the hive will be bigger and may have some other changes to accomodate being transported often.

But putting aside differences in climate, it's quite possible that the small hive would still be adequate for your conditions, considering that the bees put away less honey in these hives. Dennis has noted on his site how the bees in a TBH seem to reach a point where they're just not very motivated to keep storing honey--this, more than the fact that the honey combs have to be rebuilt each year, may be the real reason for lower production in top-bar hives.

In my conditions, 10 or 12 bars of the hive seem to suffice for the broodnest, and the rest is for honey, and since there's no mechanical extraction to be done, you can harvest a comb or two every time it starts to seem crowded.

About wintering (and again, this is certainly different elsewhere): we do a honey harvest in mid-September, and then as the weather cools, the bees begin to fill the broodcombs with honey for the winter. According to Tim Haarmann, those 10 or 12 bars full of honey should be sufficient to get a colony through a typical northern New Mexico winter. That's 30 to 36 lbs of honey. Actually, less, because there would be pollen in there too.

I'm guessing that as the weather warms, I'll need to check the brood area to be sure it's not hemmed in by honeycomb. If it is, I'll either shift or remove that honey, and provide some empty bars on the edges of the broodnest, to allow the bees to expand their broodrearing.

For feeding in the fall, I used Boardman feeders. I'm probably going to try a big bowl in the back of the hive, with floats, when I start new packages in spring, because I got tired of refilling those Boardman jars.

The guy south of here, who supports a family doing top-bar beekeeping, uses a different hive design than the one I've shown on my site. Besides having an airspace above the bars (instead of insulation), it has longer bars, a small side entrance instead of a big front one, and may be deeper than the hive I use. There are two small apiaries within a mile or two of me, using these hives, and I just need to get out there and photograph and measure the hives. I'd also like to take one of the workshops that beekeeper offers, and find out what his management practices are. (BTW, he takes advantage of the increased wax production from these hives, and does a brisk business with candles, or that's what I hear.)

Anyway, I suspect the volume of his hives is more than the volume of the Hardison hives. I'll try to get out within the next week and look at those hives--I think the comparison will be useful.

I hope none of you who built hives based on my phtographs are now stuck with hives too small for your abundant honey flows. I hadn't really thought to provide a warning that the volume might be too small for other locations.

Take a look at Hardison's essay on locale-specific hive designs, and tell me what you think.

David

[dmcdonald]

Now I'm wondering: doesn't your broodnest management philosophy have a determining effect on how populous the hive gets, and therefore on how big of a hive the bees seem to need? Suppose I built a much bigger hive, abandoned the assumption that the broodnest needs to be managed so as not to exceed 10-12 bars, and in fact tried to push the population high, by inserting empty bars into the brood area as fast as the bees could use them?

Maybe then it would turn out these small hives, and the broodnest management assumptions that go with them, are an artificial limit on the colony size and therefore also on honey production?

Or maybe my predecessors have already, in effect, done this investigation, in a roundabout way, and this hive size is just right for the conditions here. I don't know. It may be that without constant feeding, the food supply here just wouldn't be sufficient to populate a larger hive.

But I am tempted to build a bigger hive next year, and try encouraging a bigger brood area. Those of you who have used the 'unlimited broodnest' approach with Langstroths may be able to help me figure out how to approach this: is there an absolute population threshhold that triggers swarming, or is it more a matter of whether the bees feel they're running short on hive volume, proportionate to their population?

[Scot Mc Pherson]

dmcdonald,
Ok well. One of the reasons for using a tbh is less management. Dennis' bees became complacent because he speculates they were happy with their lot in life. A happy hive is a productive hive. If one could duplicate this condition with many hives, then one could discover their magic hive size. Let the bees get happy, then remove only as much honey as still guarantees their survival through the next winter. Continue this practice season and each hive will be strong, yet stress free.

If one is worried about increasing honey production, then add another hive. The cost of the hive is about the same as the cost of a new super.

This provides for less management and bees being able to manage their own brood nest. Again this makes the bees happier and provides a less stressful environment.

Same honey, just more hives with less management giving it.

One of the so called "disadvantages" is that you might not be able to manage the brood nest the same as in a langstroth. The comb might not be built to facilitate switching the bars around. I find this to be ok though, again I think the bees know what they want better than what we think is best for them. Just let the bees develop their population as they see fit and crop off honey from the back of the hive when the bees get that complacent look about them, but not so much that the bees get in a panic. Just enough to give them something to do.

I am working on designing some support equipment similar to things like the division board feeder and follower. A follower is a fake back to a TBH that allows you to control the size of a hive incrementally for winter management and such.

I view swarming a bit differently than most people I believe. If a hive is strong and has ample honey stores, then I think swarming is a healthly thing for the overall environment and healthy for your bees. It gives the bees a chance to multiply, and it also relaxes the population of your hives allowing the hive to "get back to work" as it were. Again swarming is a good and natural thing, not something I think we should discourage. Again if you are concerned about honey production, then build more hives, they are cheap.

Just my opinions.

------------------
--
Scot Mc Pherson
"Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me

[Hillbillynursery]

Scot and others,
I am some where in between let them swarm and take ever cell out of the hive. I think that during the swarming period that I would make splits and control the swarming behavior. I am starting out with 2 TBHs made exactly alike. IF they work out this year I am going to make all future TBHs the same. This will give me a chance to swap stores or brood. I was thinking of trying one of the methods I read were you take one to two frames(in this case TBs) from each colony to make a colony and either let them raise their own queen or purchase a queen for the split. According to what I have read this method slows if not stops the parent colonies from swarming by giving them room in the broodnest but does not deplete them of bees to make a good harvest. The split/s are suppose to make more honey than the brood cost the parent colonies by them being so strong for the begining. Since I only have 2 hives going thru winter I will have a slow start with this method. I will probly make a split this way but using 3 frames from each hive since they are in medium boxs and then shake them into the TBHs. Please do not get mad at this next comment. Since TBHs are so cheap to make and if you do not have to purchase bees because you keep enough bees to make all the slpits in the spring, I have thought about making the splits and just shaking(brushing the bees off the combs) out the weak colonies in the fall so they could join with the hives in the same yard. It is going back in time compared to modern ways of bee keeping but better than killing the hives to get their honey. It just seems the simplest way to combine TBHs since you can not stack them on the strong colony with news paper between them. I did think about brushing them directly into the hive chosen but them you would have to spray them and the hive with sugar water to keep the fighting down which is alot more work but could be done. This way the hives that were left would be real strong for the late fall flow. Maybe I just have to much time to think but I think when one is looking for simple beekeeping why not keep it simple.

[Kansas Volunteer]

You guys might want to look at this:
http://www.pinterventions.org/beekeeping_in_africa.htm

I haven't had time to study it. I just got an e-mail from the folks telling me they had put their manual on-line. I had previously asked them to send me an e-copy in pdf format.

I'm looking forward to studying all the recent posts. I don't have time now, but it sure looks as if the subject is HOT!

David S.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

yeah this thread has been going on for 2 years and 3 months now.

[Michael Bush]

Looks like the one in the link above has a 19" top bar, according to their conversion. According to mine it would be closer to 18 7/8", but let's not get picky. The bars are 1 1/4" wide. The hive is 37 3/4" long and 7 3/8 wide inside at the bottom and 17 5/16 wide inside at the top.

[Oxankle]

dmcdonald:
David, around here we have a very early flow from black locust, then a short lull, then a main flow of clover that runs from about the first of May to mid-June. That is pretty much it until the fall wildflowers unless the bees are lucky enough to find some soybeans blooming in their range.

At present I am running one hive body and a medium super, sometimes two mediums as brood nest. If well provisioned these hives are boiling with bees early in spring and will harvest locust, then clover. In the past I have taken of as many as six medium supers from one hive. Last year I had no harvest at all.

Spring management generally consists of swapping places with the hive bodies. The queen will almost always be in the top with the remaining stores and a big brood nest while the bottom box will be almost empty. Reversing this puts the heat and the queen up in the wide open spaces. When serious about honey I cut out queen cells.

With this history, I am not sure how to manage the little tapered hive, but for sure I would take out any surplus right after the main flow so that the bees could go back to work storing winter supplies. Here I would be afraid to pull any fall honey for fear that they would not have winter stores.

After you have a look at the second set of hives, give us a report. It may be that there are improvements yet to be made.
Ox

[Oxankle]

Fellows:

Re the discussion on the size of the TBH.

I just read the equipment discussion on the site linked by Kansas Volunteer. There they state that the hive should be about 70 litres in volume. The design put out by dmcdonald runs around 74-75 litres; I just calculated mine at 72-73.

There was no explanation for this, just the statement. Obviously there is something that we do not understand about bees and beekeeping in the TBH.
Ox

[Michael Bush]

The one I just built is 74 liters. But it's a bit longer and narrower than most of you have. Mine is 48 3/4" long (three Langstroth boxes).

[Oxankle]

Michael:

The Somali hive for which plans are given is only 7 inches across the bottom, but l7+ across the top, much wider taper than ours. Length is about the same.

I wonder why the 70 litre specification?
Ox

[Scot Mc Pherson]

If we would start using metric measurements as a general course of life, seeing the relationships between linear dimensions and volume would be so much easier.

[Oxankle]

Scott;

You still have to multiply three dimensions. I have no trouble now visualizing cubic feet. I'll admit that it is easier to divide cubic CC's by 1,000 than to divide cubic inches by l727.

Still, I wonder how it is that 70 litres is the suggested volume? I've e-mailed to ask.

If in fact there is a "bee" reason for that volume then follower boards are very much needed in larger hives. Certainly bees will occupy and use much larger hives when they are boiling over with workers and have a good flow.
Ox

[Michael Bush]

I am speculating but I think part of this is that most TBH are a fixed size. If you use a follower, then they are not and you can change the size. I think if they are a fixed size, it has to be "just right". Too small and they swarm, too big and they don't prosper or overwinter well.

[Kansas Volunteer]

I've been trying to find info on-line about ideal hive size, without much luck.

I did run across this, which might provide some useful information and sources:
http://www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/invasive/insects/bees/distribution.html

David S.

[txbeeguy]

That Somali hive's dimension is not a lot different than mine. My hive is 19 inches at the top and tapers to about four or five inches at the bottom. My hive is 44 inches long (thirty top bars - or three Langstroth's). It has one 3/4-inch thick 'follower board'. I have the hive "sized down" using the follower board to just 15 top bars for this winter. If the comb hadn't failed, I'm sure the bees would have drawn out at least 20 bars the first year rather than just the 15 they're on now. After I limit their comb depth this Spring (by placing a wider bottom board in the hive) I will move the follower board to the back of the hive and give them the other 15 top bars to work this coming year.
--
About cavity size: I believe I recall a study published in "The Hive and the Honey Bee" but I don't recall the optimum cavity size they determined the bees liked best.

[Oxankle]

Fellows:
I got a reply from the folks in Somalia re the 70 litre specs for their top bar.

Very gracious note; said that their bees were smaller, they used the 32mm top bar. Most farmers caught swarms at the beginning of the rains, kept the bees and harvested at the end of the rains and then saw the bees abscond when nectar became available farther away. Harvests around 25Kg.

Said that they had not actually checked to see what sizes their clients were in fact building but knew that some were much larger, some smaller than 70 litres. They tried to discourage small hives as they promoted swarming.

From this I conclude that in Somalia many beekeepers do not work toward year-round hives but simply harvest wild swarms. If they are not concerned with winter stores they can take all the honey---a 70 litre box is probably large enough.

I think that I will sit tight now and try both the Somali and Tanzanian hives. A comparison will show me which I can manage.
Ox

[Cinnamon]

Hi,

I'm currently an armchair beekeeper and I'm planning to start out with 2 top bar hives this spring.

No-one locally uses tbh's so I'm wondering how to bootstrap my hives.

Can I just dump the bees into their new hive and let them get on with it? And how many bees would I need initially in this case?

I've read beewranglers nice site (love the pics!) and his Varrora blaster made me think that if I can just start off with bees (and no combs) this would be the ideal time to dust them down -- no combs for the mites to hide. Is that sensible, or will they get upset if I do that too soon?

Or should I dust them when they are still in their travelling box, wait a bit for them to calm down and the mites to die, then just put the box in the hive, open it and hope? Or maybe, not dust them at all intially, but a few days later?

Also, I'm tempted to make the back of the hive into a door, so I can easily put in feed and pull out the bottom sheet to count mites or simply have a peek without panicking them.

If I do that, should I plan on adding a perspex sheet frame so I don't get divebombed?

many thanks,

Cinnamon

Ps.: I've a lot more questions, but the margin is to small to contain them :)

[Michael Bush]

>No-one locally uses tbh's so I'm wondering how to bootstrap my hives.

>Can I just dump the bees into their new hive and let them get on with it? And how many bees would I need initially in this case?

You will have to have a queen and some bees. If you're measuring in volume I'd say about a half a gallon to a gallon would be a nice start, but you could get by on as little as a quart. The more they have the quicker they will get started.

You could take a queen from an existing hive, buy one, or raise one. If you take some comb with eggs in it and tie a small piece to a top bar they will raise a queen, but it will slow them down a by about a month from giving them a queen.

If you buy a queen, go to all your hives and shake some bees off of brood comb. Be sure you don't get the queen unless that is your plan. The easiest way is to FIND the queen first, then shake the bees. I shake them into a box that has #8 hardware cloth on the bottom and an inner cover with #8 hardware cloth on it. Whenever you get to a new hive to do your shaking, knock the box on the ground to knock the cluster down and then shake some more frames of brood. This is so you get nurse bees who don't just fly back to the old hive. By getting bees from several hives you get them all disoriented. Put them in the basement where it's dark and cool for about four hours, or at least somewhere in the shade. This is to let them get organized and realize they are queenless. Then put a queen cage in with them and wait overnight. The next day I would dump the bees into the top bar hive and release the queen into the hive.

Of course if you buy a package they have already been through all of this. I'd brush some sugar syrup on the side of the box until they don't want anymore and then I'd just dump the bees in the TBH and release the queen. If you want to use some hardware cloth to close them in for 24 hours it may cut down on them wanting to abscond.

Of course feeding is in order whether you do or don't close them up.

>I've read beewranglers nice site (love the pics!) and his Varrora blaster made me think that if I can just start off with bees (and no combs) this would be the ideal time to dust them down -- no combs for the mites to hide. Is that sensible, or will they get upset if I do that too soon?

It would be a GREAT time to do it. The box I just described for the shakedown, would also work to dust them. You can just staple the inner cover on the top and flip it upside down and use a flour sifter or a pice of screen door screen to run the powdered sugar through to dust them. Shake them up well so they are thoroughly coated. Then turn the box with the screen down so the mites can fall out. The sugar won't kill the mites, it will just dislodge them, so you want the mites to have somwhere to fall.

>Or should I dust them when they are still in their travelling box, wait a bit for them to calm down and the mites to die

As I said, the mites won't die. They will just fall off. You have to give them somewhere to fall. Use a hive box (or any box) with #8 hardware cloth on the bottom so the mites have somewhere to fall.

>then just put the box in the hive, open it and hope?

You could put the box in the hive and open it. I would just dump them in. But if you want to dust them, do it before you put them in.

>Or maybe, not dust them at all intially, but a few days later?

Do it while you have them all outside the hive. You need to get the mites to fall OUTSIDE the hive.

>Also, I'm tempted to make the back of the hive into a door, so I can easily put in feed and pull out the bottom sheet to count mites or simply have a peek without panicking them.

The nice thing about a top bar hive is you can pull the back bar out and take a peek without panicking them. The bottom sheet is best if it comes out the back so you don't upset the gaurds, of course.

>If I do that, should I plan on adding a perspex sheet frame so I don't get divebombed?

Not sure I understand the "perspex sheet frame"? If you're a beekeeper you will occasionally get divebombed. I'd get used to it.

>Ps.: I've a lot more questions, but the margin is to small to contain them :)

You can make multiple posts. http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

I will say that a lot of things we talk about like dumping the box of bees in the hive, is much more messy in real life. A lot of bees start flying and a lot don't fall out of the box. Shaking bees into or out of a box is a bit more decisive of an action than you usually take when handling bees. You have to shake them hard enough to break their grip and that is never gentle. Not that you want to get overly violent either, but you have to rap the box rather decisively to knock the cluster loose. You soon learn the right amount if you pay attention. You don't want any more than necessary, but not less than necessary. Same with shaking bees off a frame. It takes a very decisive stop to knock them loose. I like to hold the frame in both hands and hit my hands on the side of the box I'm shaking them into. If you go too hard you'll hurt your hands. Too soft and the bees don't come off. But it's hard to go too hard with your hands absorbing the shock.

[txbeeguy]

> I'm tempted to make the back of the hive into a door...

That's the way my TBH is (hinged).
http://profiles.yahoo.com/txbeeguy

The the "View my photos"

[wayacoyote]

Ox,
you asked about splined Top Bars. I used them this past year, and here is my experience. I grooved the TB's all the way to the ends and centered the splines with a beespace between them and the sides of the hive. I was a bit careless about applying beeswax to the TB's. This resulted in a few misplaced combs which were caught early on and removed.

Second was a problem with the grooving itself. The grooves had to be wide enough for my scrap-wood spines. By running them all the way through to the ends of the TB, I was left with each groove serving as a opening to the hive. This allowed robbing and probably increased stress from a need for guard bees. The bees had to work over time to propolis these openings. I should have nipped this in the bud by sealing these openings.

On a separate note, I have noticed that some people are interested in TB's that would interchange into a Lang hive. I wanted this as well. Well, sticking to the typical designs of TBH's, I made my TB's to ride on top of the sides of the hive. I have decided that I will make my TB's the same length as those of a frame. This way, they will sit on the frame rest in a Lang body. With this design, I can interchange my frames and TB's and stack hive parts above in normal Lang-hive fashion.

[Michael Bush]

>On a separate note, I have noticed that some people are interested in TB's that would interchange into a Lang hive. I wanted this as well. Well, sticking to the typical designs of TBH's, I made my TB's to ride on top of the sides of the hive. I have decided that I will make my TB's the same length as those of a frame. This way, they will sit on the frame rest in a Lang body. With this design, I can interchange my frames and TB's and stack hive parts above in normal Lang-hive fashion.

I tried to make them the same as a Langstroth, in fact I PUT them in a Langstroth box (double wide) but the comb collapse has convinced me to go smaller.



[This message has been edited by Michael Bush (edited February 02, 2004).]

[txbeeguy]

My top bars are 19 inches long and were also cut to be interchangeable with a Langstroth hive. I have not tried them in a Lang box yet but not due to comb failure as much as the problem associated with burr comb attachment to a straight sided box.
--
Michael, you know my earlier comments about suspended weight; I just wonder if, after your comb has aged some (i.e., gone through several cycles of brood), would the comb have stood up in a Lang box then? The other thing I'm a little concerned about regarding "interchangeability" between a sloped-sided TBH and a Lang box, is the more rectangular shape of the comb lending itself to less structural strength along the outter sides of the comb (a problem that is somewhat reduced in a slope-sided hive - due to less suspended weight as you get further away from the point of attachment on a top bar).

[BULLSEYE BILL]

>I tried to make them the same as a Langstroth, in fact I PUT them in a Langstroth box (double wide) but the comb collapse has convinced me to go smaller.

Had you considered putting the bars in crossways? That would make them four inches shorter.

[wayacoyote]

My last TB's were put in cross-ways and were shorter. It didn't solve the interchanglability issue since the frames were at right angles to the tb's.

Thanks for reminding me about the lenght/ comb failure issue. Surprisingly, after reading this whole thread, I forgot that. I still hope to go with foundationless frames. Perhaps by allowing them to brace to endbars, I will get stable comb.
Coyote

[Cinnamon]

Hi Michael and all,

Thanks for the enlightenment on the Varrora mites and initial population size :)

> If you want to use some hardware cloth to close them in for 24 hours it may cut down on them wanting to abscond.

When you say '#8 hardware cloth', is that a metal mesh with 8mm squares?

> Not sure I understand the "perspex sheet frame"? If you're a beekeeper you will occasionally get divebombed. I'd get used to it.

The idea of the perspex sheet was to minimize the disruption to the hive (temp, odours etc) when I open it from the back. Another worry I have is that I'll not be able to lift the hives in winter to check that they still have enough food, so part of this idea was that I thought I could perform a check wrapping the hive in a blanket at then end which I'm opening and quickly taking a look with a flashlight, without having to remove the roof and letting all the heat out, and the perspex frame/wall would further diminish this impact whilst allowing me to take a peek. (Tho London UK is definitly not Siberia, we had 1 cm snow here last week, for a whole 4 glorious hours, whee!)

Another question I have is: What is the weight of a topbar with full comb (say, if its from a hive with a 40cm x30cm rectangular cavity)? If it's more than 6kg, I might need to think about making the hive narrower and not so deep if that is possible. I've a bit of a structural problem with my spine, its no biggie, but I have to plan a little more in depth than others -- I'm lefthanded since 2 years which is an interesting challenge :)

Cinnamon

Ps.: txbeeguy, nice photos!

[Michael Bush]

Bill, yes I thought of that. I just decided since the comb failure to try something more "conventional" as TBH's go and make a slopesided shorter barred hive.

Cinnamon,
>When you say '#8 hardware cloth', is that a metal mesh with 8mm squares?

It is 8 wires to the inch. Sometimes called 1/8" hardware cloth. I don't know what's available there, but here the basic useful hardware cloths are: #4 (1/4") for keeping out mice and letting in bees. #5 for pollen traps and cheap queen excluders. #7 for a pollen screen to filter pollen through. #7 or #8 to keep bees out but provide good ventilation.

>The idea of the perspex sheet was to minimize the disruption to the hive (temp, odours etc) when I open it from the back. Another worry I have is that I'll not be able to lift the hives in winter to check that they still have enough food, so part of this idea was that I thought I could perform a check wrapping the hive in a blanket at then end which I'm opening and quickly taking a look with a flashlight, without having to remove the roof and letting all the heat out, and the perspex frame/wall would further diminish this impact whilst allowing me to take a peek. (Tho London UK is definitly not Siberia, we had 1 cm snow here last week, for a whole 4 glorious hours, whee!)

I suppose my first problem was I didn't know what perspex was, but I'm assuming it's some plastic glazing like Plexiglass or Lexan. I had a window on the side of my last one. The only thing I would point out is it needs a cover to keep the sun out. But I like them.

[mattoleriver]

CAUTION, rant to follow!

This topic has become WAY TOO HUGE! There is a lot of good information and people are obviously very interested but the information is buried within too many pages. When searching for specific information it is not reasonable to look through more than 400 posts to find something that may have just been mentioned in passing. I would like to see either a separate TBH Forum or more specific TBH topics within existing forums. This topic is too large for one thread.
Don't get me wrong, I really find this information fascinating, I just want to be able to find it again without reading 400+ posts.
George

[This message has been edited by mattoleriver (edited February 03, 2004).]

[Oxankle]

George;
Can't we do that with the search feature? Specify that you want to search Equipment/Hardware for either author or subject?

I'm going to test that now.
Ox

[Michael Bush]

It would be a nice thing to make a FAQ section for this or someone to compile the information and post it one place, but right now I think we still have more questions than answers so it's hard to organize the information.

[Hillbillynursery]

I have been thinking the same thing about this getting to long to find the point/s I was searching for at different times. I have no idea how to sort it or re do it unless it had its own board. If we had a few people with alot of experience that worked(little or no comb failure, management to make them work, type of box, ect), Then it could be slpit up or have FAQ section for it. I bought a table saw today and will be getting started making my TBHs later this week. I can not wait to see how it comes out. I think I am going to make a mix of bar widths. I am going to have 1 1/4, 1 3/8, and 1 1/2. This way I hope to get small cell in the brood area and as I get into honey combs I will not have a problem with crossing combs. I know I will do this in one hive.

[Michael Bush]

>I am going to have 1 1/4, 1 3/8, and 1 1/2. This way I hope to get small cell in the brood area and as I get into honey combs I will not have a problem with crossing combs. I know I will do this in one hive.

That's what I'm doing in this one. A variety with 1 1/4" in the brood chamber.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

I am still working on the FAQ.

The issue is two fold, how to organize it, and where do I start?

THere is a ton of information to sift through, plus I am trying to not sound really stupid as I compile it.

I want to not just write this and make it seem like I am the source of information. I'd like it to be more collaborative.

But at first I think getting a rough draft out first, and then perhaps we can edit it or make comments to it ... or sth...but I don't have anything I am willing to let you all look at yet, its just a mess of jumbled ideas and posed questions. :PP

[Michael Bush]

Offhand I'd say the issues are:

How do you handle the combs. Including how to correct misdrawn (running off of the bar) or crosscombs.

How do yo work the hive?

What are the "critical" dimensions? Volume? Top bar length? Angle of the sides? Depth?

Ventilation? How much? How to get it?

Entrances? Where? How many?

Stands? Yes or no? How to build them?

How to stock a hive?

I think I'd do each of these (and other topics as they occur to you) and put in everyones opinon on the subject. Because at this point, most of us are speculating based on dimensions of working TBH's posted somewhere.

[dmcdonald]

I've added to my site a description and photos of another hive, from a beekeeper named Les Crowder. This one is especially interesting in that it has a small entrance and doesn't seem to require any additional ventilation. This makes me think that the need for additional ventilation in some hive designs is because with too large an entrance, the bees can't effectively pump air, by fanning--there's too much uncontrollable air leakage.

Note also that this hive uses 20-inch bars, with about 18 inches effective comb width at the top. No reports of comb failure, though I didn't ask Les specifically about this.

Anyway, this hive merits a close look. I hope to participate in a workshop with Les next month, and will know more then.

Here's the link: http://home.att.net/~mcdonald/bees/hive/

[Hillbillynursery]

I like the pics and desciption of Les's TBHs. Did you notice how many of the the TBs were warped? I think that I will place some 2x material down both ends of the TBs to help keep this from happening as bad. I think I will also build a top instead of using a piece of tin. It will be simple, probly a piece of plywood covered with flashing metal. The point of the strips he places on the bar is close to center. This should be where the mid rib is formed so it should cener the combs. I had an idea to make a tri anglular piece and glueing and nailing it on the top bar to mimic those fancy cut TBs. If this is the way he has been doing it for years with good success I will have to give it a try when I get the saw set up(going to make room and hope to assemble Friday and start work on my hives the next weekend).

[Kansas Volunteer]

First, Micahel, Cinnamon's Perspex is what we call Plexiglas, or acrylic sheet.

I think it's neat to see the thread run on so long, but it is a nuisance to search.

An FAQ is in order, and I'd be happy to help with it, as I think I indicated before. Once upon a time, I was an editor, so can help anyone working on and FAQ and desiring help.

I really would like to know if there is anyway to print out this entire thread? I have tried doing anything like that before, but it would help we a lot to have it on paper. Call me old fashioned, but I still find paper much more freindly to work on. Could we get the site owner or someone to bundle it all up in once piece, or does itexist that way now in the cyber world?

David S.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Well Cinnamon gave me the idea of using a wiki type deal last night. I have already done some research on the software and have a quick and dirty setup running on my own server right now without any content. More like just seeing what this can do before I commit to it.

It should provide us the ability to create a living and breath and user updateable FAQ.

I have e-mailed Barry about this as far as beesource.com is concerned, but again it was only last night so I haven't heard from him yet. I don't mind hosting the FAQ, though I think if its going to be a beesource.com FAQ that either the wiki is hosted directly on the beesource server, or if beesource.com can grant me a sub domain name like faq.beesource.com or wiki.beesource.com. Then the wiki/faq can be hosted on my own servers which make adminstration a little easier for me, at least unless or until I get admin right to beesource...Again no biggy, but this software is pretty neat, I am kind of excited about it because the foundation or platform of our FAQ.

The lack of necessity to have one person edit the FAQ and maintain it regularly makes it even more attractive as a general beekeeping FAQ forum. As people feel like making contributions, they can.

Pages can be organized by popularity, date of recent changes, and lot of other neat things. ANyway, I'd like to hear what you think about a "living and breathing FAQ Forum" aka beewiki is what I am calling it right now. I have already started hybridizing it so it looks nice to me. Its based on phpwiki in case anyone is interested in knowing that.

I am still learning about it, its online right now (without any content) and I am reluctant to release the current URL for it because it looks rather plain. I'd like to improve on it, give it the color schemas we use on beesource and such things like that. Perhaps tonight or tomorrow I will have something for you to look at. But it is there and it is working right now.

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--
Scot Mc Pherson
"Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me
"Do or not do, there is no try" ~ Master Yoda

[Cinnamon]

Heyas,

It occured to me that not everyone here knows what a wiki is.

Take a look here to see one in action:
http://senseis.xmp.net/

This works very well for the Go players!

Oh, no-one answered how heavy a fully drawn frame is btw (say 40cmx30 cm, that is 16 by 12 inch) I just need a ballpark figure so I can ponder the design of my hives :)

cheers,

Cinnamon

[dmcdonald]

Sounds like a Wiki is an excellent way to do the FAQ. Thanks for getting it going, Scot.

[Michael Bush]

Full deep comb 8" * 17" (comb dimensions not frame dimensions) (136 inches sq) comb weighs 9 pounds.
Thats about .066 pounds per square inch.
so thats 16 * 12 inches which is 192 inches sq *.066 pounds per square inch is 12.672 pounds or 5.73 Kg.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Ok guys, I have the inital FAQ site setup in place. Please forgive the sparseness of the wiki because I have been working on setting it up, not adding content. Plus I only just started working on this last night.

I am still trying to get the theme right for beesource so please pay no mind to that at the moment.

Please feel free to play around with it, but also, please try to be serious. I don't at the moment have any way managing what has been included on the pages. I have included help and instructions at the bottom of the homepage, and it should be MORE than enough to get everyone started.

If you want to experiment to see what somethign does, please use the sandbox for any "playing around" I do not care what content you put in there, that's what it's for. I'll flush it if something offensive ends up in there, but that's hte extent of my managing the sandbox.

right now the wiki can be found at: http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/index.php

I have E-mailed barry about the wiki to either be hosted directly on beesource, or to have beesource provide me a subdomain like faq.beesource.com or beewiki.beesource.com or something like that, I haven't heard from barry yet about it though.

------------------
--
Scot Mc Pherson
"Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me
"Do or not do, there is no try" ~ Master Yoda

[Oxankle]

DMcDonald:
I've been studying your pictures of the Crowder hive. I like it. As nearly as I can deduce the inside measurements will be 7.58 high, 9.5 (or a fraction less) on the bottom and a hair over l7 across the top.

I calculate volume at between 58 and 59 litres, not a lot less than the Hardison hive I built from your plans.

A single ten foot 1 x 10 plus a couple pieces of 2x scrap for the ends and top bars will build one of these. With the shallow draft there should be no comb failure at all.

I calculate a tenth of an inch left with 25 bars. If I use 2x ends the hive will handle 24 bars.

I like the high end pieces. This will hold any roof boarding well above the top bars, but it might leave the top bars accessible to varmints.

The cleats nailed on the top bars as centering devices are devilishly simple if they work. Definitely less work than splines or wax starter strips. Have you seen them in use?

Re:Comments concerning the saw cuts for the splines. No bee can get thru a 1/8 inch saw kerf, but ants and moth larva can hole up in them. On some of my top bars I ran the spline the entire length of the bar, then used my knife to cut down to the bar where the spline needed to be removed.
Ox

[dmcdonald]

Oxankle,

I like those Crowder hives too. I like how economical the design is.

Those nailed cleats--I haven't yet seen them in use, and I wonder whether they affect the comb differently than a narrow spline would--but I know they are being used, in a lot of hives, so they must be adequate. I'll get to look closely at some combs from these hives next month, and I'll be able to say more then. One more thing: I think those cleat pieces are produced when the edges of the bottom board are trimmed, so it's a clever reuse of a by-product of making the hive body....

David

[limulus]

Hello all,
Thank you posting all this valuable information, and the links to some great sites and pictures. I plan on starting a top bar hive this spring. I have not had any experience in beekeeping except as a kid helping a neighbor who had a few Lang hives. I allways thought it would be a bit equipment intensive (Hives, supers, extractors, etc.)for me do , but now I am going to give it a shot with a tbh or two. This thread has been very informative. My question is regarding the shape of the top bars. A number of you have posted that the bees like to build curved comb, and methods to straighten the comb.I was wondering if any of you have pictures of curved comb, and have noticed any consistancy to the degree of curvature. The reason I am asking is that if we want to let the bees build what they want why can't we let them make curved comb? If they like a particular degree of curvature I could build my top bars curved toward the front and allow them to built the comb the way they want it. maybe it would even be stronger that way. And since all the bars would be curved bee space would be maintained. Any Thoughts?

[Michael Bush]

>My question is regarding the shape of the top bars. A number of you have posted that the bees like to build curved comb, and methods to straighten the comb.I was wondering if any of you have pictures of curved comb, and have noticed any consistancy to the degree of curvature.

Basically the ends of the combs seem to curve toward the front of the hive on mine.

>The reason I am asking is that if we want to let the bees build what they want why can't we let them make curved comb?

Because it would be too hard to manipulate?

>If they like a particular degree of curvature I could build my top bars curved toward the front and allow them to built the comb the way they want it. maybe it would even be stronger that way. And since all the bars would be curved bee space would be maintained.

I had bars that were the length of a Lang frame. The comb went about 1/4" toward the front at the ends, but this grow as the comb worked it's way back so it was finally bridging the bars.

>Any Thoughts?

Bend a stick and try to get it to stay on the edge of a box. You'll find than any significant amount of curvature would cause the bar to not set flat in the hive.

I don't think it's that important. It's pretty insignificant at first and accumulates as you work your way back in the hive.

I was using 1 1/2" bars which may have facilitated the curve by giving the bees more room to work with too. But I'm going to 1 1/4" this time.

On another note, I nailed and glued the "V" piece on the bottom of all the bars on this hive. I'll let everyone know how it goes. They are a 45 degree from each side (a 90 degree with the verticies down). I cut them so they would center the bar in the top bar hive also as well as center the comb on the bar.

[BerkeyDavid]

The FAQ is a great idea. You people are great! I would suggest you add these other topics to the FAQ: Links; Advantages and disadvantages; Effect of TBH on mites (my understanding is that so far no actual evidence?)

------------------

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Thanx we've been talking about it for a long time.

The FAQ site is still in its infancy, and I am more trying to figure out how best to organize it before too much content is added, so you'll see the changes haven't really been additions of content buy more moving things around and adjusting the format.

I am going to be adding some stuff today to the TBH section. I am hoping some others will join in and start adding stuff.

------------------
--
Scot Mc Pherson
BeeSourceFAQ: http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/
"Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me
"Do or not do, there is no try" ~ Master Yoda

[This message has been edited by Scot Mc Pherson (edited February 10, 2004).]

[Oxankle]

Michael:
When the subject of V-shaped bottoms on TB's first came up I wondered why they were not made as you describe rather than with the intricate cuts discussed.

We should compare notes at the end of this season to see what works best. severals of us have waxed splines, the Crowder hive uses a wedge with a vertical spaced on center and I see comments indicating there are several with V-shaped bottom bars.

One thing I noticed about the Crowder hive is that it appeared that the vertical face of the wedge was pretty wide--perhaps more than a half inch. DMc, we will be interested in your report post workshop.
Ox

[Michael Bush]

>When the subject of V-shaped bottoms on TB's first came up I wondered why they were not made as you describe rather than with the intricate cuts discussed.

I think I could have made it all one piece, but I think two pieces glued is stronger and easier to make. But then I bought a table saw... so maybe I'll do them as one piece next time.

>We should compare notes at the end of this season to see what works best. severals of us have waxed splines,

I've never tried them.

>the Crowder hive uses a wedge with a vertical spaced on center and I see comments indicating there are several with V-shaped bottom bars.

It was an interesting centering device. I think it's that way to simplify things for the builder.

>One thing I noticed about the Crowder hive is that it appeared that the vertical face of the wedge was pretty wide

Mine are cut off of the corner of a 3/4" thick board. So the faces on the wedge are 3/4" and the base where it attaches is a little wider than an inch.

[BerkeyDavid]

I am building 3 top bar hives, any problem putting a "window" of plexiglass in to make an observation spot? If no problem, where would be the best place? I was thinking at the entrance end along the side...

[Hillbillynursery]

I plan on putting the window in the rear of the hive. As long as the glass has a cover to keep light out it would not matter where you put it. I have thought about putting more than one on a hive. If I put one on the side and one at the rear the side could be opened for better lighting during the first few combs. When it got full or nearly full you could just peak in to see if you need to remove some combs from the rear and still see the brood area through the side.

[Michael Bush]

>I am building 3 top bar hives, any problem putting a "window" of plexiglass in to make an observation spot? If no problem, where would be the best place? I was thinking at the entrance end along the side...

One nice thing about top bar hives is the frames aren't blocking your view nor the foundation.

I think the best view is from the ends (not the sides) because you can see the face of the combs. But the side view isn't too bad either and you can see more of the length of the hive. The only problems are that you need to be able to close it so it doesn't turn into a solar wax melter, and you need to be able to insulate it well enough to winter. A simple solution is to put a piece of plexigalss on for the side or end. Drill holes lareg enough that the screws will slide through them easily and cut a 1 by 2 frame to go around and hold on the plexiglass. Drill pilot holes in the 1 by 2 that line up with holes in the plexiglass. Screw the whole thing on the end or side. Then cut a 1 by "shutter" to fit snug in the window and make a toggle (a small piece of wood with a screw in the middle so it pivots) top and bottom to hold the shutter in.

I've done this with good success on both lanstroth hives and top bar hives.

Be sure you drill the pilot hole in the plexiglas big enough that the screw doesn't have to stretch the hole in the plexiglass or the plexiglas will break. Also, if you can, get the hardware store to cut the plexi for you, that way you don't have to worry about breaking it. If you DO cut it yourself, either use a fine plywood blade turned backwards (teeth going the other way) or a very sharp utility knife and score it well on both sides and break it.

I didn't do it on this one because I'm still trying to figure out how well the dimensions will work, and I'm trying to keep it simple.

[scsasdsa]

HI all!
After reading all your posts I decided to try a tbh this spring I made it 48" overall long w/19" top bars sloped sides 22deg. off vertical and 12" deep. this makes an inside dimension of about 17 litre. I also made a follower board to reduce the hive size untill more room is needed. I thought I would start with about 10 bars. I drilled 6 - 3/4" holes at one end about 1" from the bottom on one end and made closing blocks for all but one. the roof will be from metal flashing on a raised telescoping wooden cover.does this set off any warning bells for those of you who have used TBH's.
thanks stuart

[Oxankle]

Stuart:
Reading your post; Your l7 litre figure seems awfully low unless you are referring only to the first ten bars. Overall design much like the Tanzanian hive.

I am building my third--I built one square sided Tanzanian, then modeled one on DMcdonald's Hardison hive and am working on a copy of the Crowder hive DMc posted.

After looking at the three side by side and talking to the lady in Somalia where the Hardison and Crowder designs originated I tend to like both the Hardison and Crowder designs better. I am thinking of ease of working them as well as the possibility of comb collaps in the 12 inch hives.

The Hardison hive is only slightly shallower than the Tanzanian model. Both it and the Crowder hive will require almost continuous harvests in a strong flow unless one devises a method of supering.

No matter which you use you have to remember that in Africa farmers do not plan to overwinter swarms--I was told that most farmers there using these TBH's plan on catching swarms at the beginning of the rainy season. At the end of the rainy season the swarms often abscond to follow the honey flow as the seasons move across the continent. Like migrant workers here moving North. For that reason the beekeepers do not need large hives.

I am thinking that because of these differing conditions we will have to manage our hives in ways that we are not accustomed to.

DMc; if you read this, please pay close attention to Mr Crowder when he talks about managing his hives and give us a report please.
Ox

[Michael Bush]

I'm still trying to work out what I think are optimal diminsions, but from my experience so far I think 12" is too deep and 19" is too wide. My first was a standard double wide Dadant deep box that was 9 5/8" deep (on a bottom board with another 3/4" = 10 3/8") and 19" bars that set in the frame rest of the Dadant deep. The combs collapsed.

My latest one has 15" bars and is about same depth, 10" deep with sloped sides. Basically it's just a 1 x 12 for all the sides and a 1 x 6 for the bottom, with the bottom nailed through to the sides and then the sides spread to 15" wide at the top. My other latest one is a three box long Lanstroth medium depth box with 19" bars. My two theories are that a shorter bar and sloped comb will relieve some of the stress. Or that the same length with less depth will relive some of the stress. I think it's likely that both may work. I probably would have only done the medium lanstroth size, but the sloped sided ones seem to be the majority of the ones that are working so I thought I'd pursue that also.

That's my opinion, but I can't say I've proven it yet.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Everyone knows my preferences for a top bar hive. I just wanted to chime in about the 3 box medium top bar hive you are talking about. I think that with bars that wide and bottoms that wide that you might not have a problem with side attachements, but that you'll experience bottom attachments.

What do you think? I am curious. It will be interesting to watch.

I am playing with 3 hives each to a similar but different design based on the dimensions outlined at the beewiki.

Check it out.

------------------
--
Scot Mc Pherson
BeeSourceFAQ: <A HREF="http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/

Linux" TARGET=_blank>http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/</A>

Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me

"Do or not do, there is no try" ~ Master Yoda

[Oxankle]

Scott:

How does one get to your FAQ site?
Ox

[Michael Bush]

&gt;I just wanted to chime in about the 3 box medium top bar hive you are talking about. I think that with bars that wide and bottoms that wide that you might not have a problem with side attachements, but that you'll experience bottom attachments.

I don't think I would except I also have a SBB on it. So I might have problems with bottom attachments. We will see.

[Scot Mc Pherson]

Oxankle,
Take a look at my sig

------------------
Scot Mc Pherson
BeeSourceFAQ: http://linuxfromscratch.org/~scot/beewiki/


"Linux is a Journey, not a Guided Tour" ~ Me

"Do or not do, there is no try" ~ Master Yoda

[This message has been edited by Scot Mc Pherson (edited February 16, 2004).]

[txbeeguy]

scsasdsa,
I think your dimensions have pretty much hit it "right on". As I've posted before, I don't think the 19-inch TB length plays a factor in comb failure. With the depth limited to 12-inches and the sloped sides (and thus, the natural shape the comb will take) should be just about right. In fact, once I put in place my 'wider' bottom board, I believe I'll end up with dimensions not greatly different from yours. I expect the comb should handle the suspended weight without difficulty (especially in your cooler VT climate). As your summer goes along, please keep us posted.

[wayacoyote]

Michael Palmer, and anyone else that makes their own foundation or starter strips,

Have you made whole-sheet foundation (without embossing) and had it work smoothly? (drawn-out pretty clean). I guess this was done in the early days of "foundation production". Does anyone have advice on how it worked?

I am trying to decide between using the Un-founation method, like Michael use; and providing just a thin foundation with wiring hoping for straighter and stronger comb.

What say ye?
Wayacoyote

[scsasdsa]

Hi all!
I have made two different top bars for my TBH the first with a groove cut the length of the bar filled with wax, the second beveled from both sides leaving a spline about 1/4" wide the length of the bar.
I attempted to match the pitch of natural comb with the bevel I will just rub the spline with bee's wax and see whick they work better. I'll keep you posted.Still getting near zero nights here, getting the itch to go play with the girls.
good beekeeping!

[Michael Bush]

&gt;I attempted to match the pitch of natural comb with the bevel

I tried this before and it works ok, but I think a steeper angle works better. My new ones are 45 degrees on each side. Your spline may help too, I didn't do the spline.