Sloped Sides - Once and For All

[shuali]

Hi - I'm new to beekeeping, attracted to TBHs after learning that "less is more" in other areas of agriculture. Also wood is expensive here, as are conventional kits.

After much reading, I am sitting down to finalize my hive design.

SO:
Is there conclusive opinion from the more experienced folks about the value of sloped sides?

Reading back through this forum, I see that Mr. Murrell and Mr. Bush don't think there's much to it, while Mr. McPherson does - just taking the folks who seem to have the most extensive beekeeping experience.

The Internet turns up conflicting reports and claims. In general, reports from developing regions support the traditional, sloped design. Here's an example:

http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/info/info/topbar/appropriate-design-of-top.shtml

Of course, these are largely pure-blooded African bees being kept in the tropics. So that may influence the bee-havior.

Bottom, bottom line - before I finalize a design and start sawing precious wood: is there conclusive evidence one way or another?

Thanks!

[shuali]

- and Happy New Year, too!

[Baloo]

I have a TBH and several langstroth hives. I stopped using foundation in both of them about a two years ago. I would use the 120 Deg. sloped sides because it makes the comb more stable. The sloped sides make triangular shaped comb sections that have a large attached surface with the weight of the comb decreasing as it goes farther out. I am bad at explaining this. Think of is this way: picture a square shaped comb and a triangle shaped comb. The square shaped comb has MUCH more weight along the bottom because of its square shape; the bottom has the same width (and therfore weight) as the top. With the triangle you only have about 1/3 the width (and threfore weight) along the bottom as the square. To make a long story boring, I can take my TBH combs (triangular) and hold them on a horizontal plane and the combs do not fail. If I did the same with my foundationless langstroth frames the comb would definitely fail. as always with any TBH you need to be ready to trim comb and attachments.
Sorry if I am confusing (and for the run-on sentences)
Brandon

[Michael Bush]

If you want deeper comb, I think what Baloo (Brandon) is saying is valid. The sloped sided ones are more staple as there isn't a "floppy" corner of comb that tends to get stressed. Think of it this way on a 90 degree comb anytime the corner is anything but vertical, one corner is stressed. With a slope that corner has to be more than the angle of the slope to be stressed.

With shallow square sided combs this has not been a problem for me so I went with the medium dept Langstroth sized box for my straight sided one without any problems. My KTBH is deeper and the bars are shorter also without any problems.

I don't see a lot of attachments on either and I do see some on both. Have you read Satterfield's site?

http://www.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/main.htm

[shuali]

Yes, I have read John's site - and yours, and Dennis Murrell's.

Because of our mild climate, I assume that we are talking about managing several small flows of nectar - and the advice seems to be that periodic harvest of smaller combs is better in this case. (Still trying to get confirmation of this from the local Beekeeping Association, which is not really geared towards hobbyists.)

So I am sketching a box whose front face is approximately 30 by 50-60 centimeters - that's roughly 1 ft. high and 2 ft. wide for those not used to metric.

20 bars at roughly 3.5 cm. per bar (somewhere between 1-1/4 and 1-3/8 inches) gives me a length of 70-80 cm.

As a square box, that's 120 liters or roughly 30 gallons. Using sides sloped at 120 degrees, the volume is cut to around 72 liters.

Does this sound right?

[shuali]

Oops, I meant James Satterfield, not John!
A bit too much to drink last night....

[Michael Bush]

If I were going to do anything other than match the Langstroth top bar width, I'd go shorter. The bees stay straighter on a shorter bar. The want to make a curved comb and that curve gets off of the bar more at the ends of a long bar than a short bar. My KTBH has top bars only 15" long and 7/8" of that is hanging over the side, so the comb is only about 12 5/8" wide. They stay on the bar much better on that than the 19" bars in the Langstroth sized one. I'd say 19" is about the maximum I'd want to go.

Also, I'm not convinced that square is a good way to get the volume. A small cluster seems to do better with the walls closer not further.

I probably won't build any more slope sided ones since interchangeability with the Langstroths is such a nice feature.

[buckbee]

I back Baloo on this one - I had a vertical wall TBH but it was the devil of a job to raise a bar with comb still attached - esp in hot weather. Sloping sides - while trickier to build - actually save on wood and I've had no attachment problems since I started using them - and no comb breakages.

I use 17" top bars as I originally planned to build hybrids that would take British standard frames as well, but the attachment problem put an end to that idea. This length works well for me and is easy to handle even when full of brood and honey.

I'm taking Michael's advice on hive volume though - mine are a bit short at 36".

[jim b]

> I had a vertical wall TBH but it was the devil of a job to raise a bar with comb still attached

I have found this to be true also. It's even difficult with the attachments cut as the comb is just a tad bit smaller than the inside of the hive all the way up until it clears the top. Not true for the sloped-sided variety.

>I probably won't build any more slope sided ones since interchangeability with the Langstroths is such a nice feature.

This is a nice feature, but i have built a sloped-sided hive to see what it's like first hand.

-j

[stangardener]

ask two differant beekeepers get three differant answers.
i don't think the original poster will get any once and for all or bottom, bottom line smile.gif

[empilolo]

My first ones are square sided, with 30 bars/framed. The width and height are determined by the standard width of planks here, 1' resp 30 cm. Height is one plank, width one and a half

Top bars without spaces in between, so that when I remove the cover nothing of the hive interior is exposed until I remove any top bar(s), When dealing with what you call "pure-blooded African bees" you want to disturb them as little as possible.

Framed to avoid them attaching to the sides and to make certain management practices easier to execute. Although I have used wood for the framing, other material could be used as well. The funniest I have seen so far was re-cycled wire coat hangers.

You might also have a look at "Rupert's Honey" and their J.H.H.

> http://www.rupertshoney.co.za/rh/index.htm

My own closely resembles a J.H.H. too, a basic design which I expect to become adopted by many keepers here in Africa, just because it makes a lot of sense. My next hive version will have SBB (Screened Bottom Board).

Considering your cost of wood as well as the mild climate, you may find another material to build your hive which could be a lot cheaper. "Rupert's" use plastic sheeting for the hive body. Here in Africa, people use all kinds of materials apart from wood to build their hives, like cement, mud (clay), burlap sacking, woven plant materials, etc. A lot depends on rainfall and whether or not the hives are under a roof, like a simple beehouse.

> http://www.apiconsult.com/bee-houses-kenya.htm

I would consider increasing the number of top bars to 30 and a screened bottom.

[Moersch]

Hello all,

I am in the process of designing my hives as well. I like the idea of straight sided hives. Reading empilolo's entry, I must pose the question-Why WOULDN'T one frame the top bars, as he suggests? Assuming one has the needed wood, and can build accurately enough to respect the bee space around the frames, wouldn't such a method utilize the best aspects of TBH's and Langsroth hives?
Food for thought.

John (Moersch)

[Michael Bush]

Frames with solid top bars (no gaps) work fine. It just takes more work and more wood.

[Sasha]

Moersch: Assuming one has the needed wood, and can build accurately enough to respect the bee space around the frames, wouldn't such a method utilize the best aspects of TBH's and Langsroth hives?

Yes, it's called the long hive. smile.gif

[Michael Bush]

Of course if you don't care about the gaps, you can just build a long hive that takes standard frames...

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshorizontalhives.htm

[sierrabees]

I don't know if I should put this in a seperate thread or not but if it doesn't fit here let me know.

I have several nucs that I used to winter over my excess queens in my queen bank. I have bee thinking about modifying a couple of langs so they will hold two or three standard frames and partitioning the inside walls of the rest of the box so they can only build comb that will fit a KTB hive. I plan to put these nucs in the new configuration until they build some natural comb or SC comb on the TBH part, then move them into a full size KTB hive. I'm thinking this could speed up the process of regression if I give them SC starter strips. I know this is a lot of extra work and might just end up being one more piece of equipment stashed in the back of the barn if it doesn't work, but I would like any advice or opinions anyone has to offer.

[Baloo]

I'm not trying to be difficult, but if you are going with straight sided hive in langstroth fashion... Why not just make your life easier and make foundationless frames (http://www.charlesmartinsimon.com/pictures.htm). You get the advantages of a TBH with all the integration of a langstroth. It is easier to add a wedge to a langstroth frame and go foundationless than to build an entire TBH. In my opinion you build a TBH to simplify beekeeping, not to have worry about sides and supers etc...


THIS IS NOT MEANT TO DISCOURAGE SUCH TBH ADVANCEMENTS.
I use these frames in my langstroth hives.
Cheers
Brandon

[empilolo]

The TBH as we mostly see them now were developed in Africa. The issues, apart from producing honey and wax, were low cost and easy to build under local conditions. A frame will add to the cost as well as tax some of Africa's carpenter's beyond their limits, because precision is not required to build a simple TBH, but you need to keep to beespace once you make frames.

But in no way does this mean you can not use frames. While conventional Langstroth hives are normally not "tampered" with, a horizontal hive offers a lot of additional scope for experiments. Check out MB's site for horizontalhives. Individual bars are more readily accessible throughout the hive.

Working with somewhat mean bees, a TBH is a clear winner. Top bars without spaces but with frames to support comb are a bonus in hot climates and if you would like to do splits and other more advanced management practices they sure help too.

Moersch. You go right ahead with what seems good to you.

Baloo, I would not consider your comments to be difficult. You have a different opinion, is all, as have I. Long live diversity.

[Moersch]

Few things in this life are written in stone, true and constant under ALL conditions. Beekeeping exemplifies this. That's one of the things which keeps drawing me to it- the opportunity and the necessity for creation and innovation.
Thanks to everyone for all the valuable input and encouragement. I find myself taking notes from nearly every posting.

Moersch

[stangardener]

sierra bees,
i think your plan has merit and the "insert" doesn't have to be fancy as long as the resulting comb fits into a slope sided hive. i've gotten away from sloped sides but if i'd never had a sloped sided hive i would have to try one.
i don't use starter strips i use comb guides. they're only meant to guide the bees to make an attatchment where i want it so i have an on going question wether it makes a hill of beans weather a person uses sc or a piece of what ever. i know my bees tend to have a cap of honey on single story hives anyway thus negating brood rearing at the top of the comb.
all that said i'm a proponent of sc and natural comb.

[sierrabees]

Empilolo

Thank you for your comments. I am actually going to experiment with both the Langstroth and the Kenya type top bar hives this year. My main objective is to transition to small cell and natural cell with about fifty hives while keeping a few conventional colonies for pollination. The reason I am going to start out with frames is to allow me to move my bees from their existing frames with their wax contaminated by years of treatments on to their own untreated comb. By sloping the sides of the frames I hope to be able to move the bees and brood to the new hive configuration and put the old comb above an older unregressed hive to be cleaned before I remove the old wax. Then I can clean the frames and let them build new comb. MB and others have suggested elswhere in this thread that the sloped sides make it easier to remove the frames without damageing them. The complete four sided frames will only be used for the transitional phase.
I will probably only use one or two of these in each hive between the standard Langstroths and the true top bars and by the time the main honey flow is over I expect to have all the colonies moved to more permenant TB hives and the original frames ready to use the next year.

Stangardener
I'm playing with the idea of making the transitional frames in such a way that they are in contact all the way around thus eliminating the need for an insert. I think if I can get the bees to limit their comb to these frames and move the frames so they are always in the middle of the brood chamber, the bees should keep the rest of their comb shaped in such a way that it will fit when I move the colony into a KTBH. If not, there is always the option of a knife or pair of scissors. Since none of my bees are regressed, I am hoping that using small cell starter strips will get them started with building smaller cells a little faster than the other options. It's too bad that the window for very active cell building is so short, and my age and health doesn't promise to give me too many years to accomplish this changeover, so my scheme is designed to try to cut about a year off the total regression. There used to be an old Farside cartoon with a dog working it's way through a forest and the caption "So many trees and so little time."

[stangardener]

i've only been involved with bees for two seasons now but i feel very fortunate that i started out with top bar hives. i learned very quickly that frames are not essential. i even moved my first year tbh's with out problems. that said i will and do use frames for foundation (small cell) and will purchase and not make frames when needed. i see frames as quite a good deal based on my present wood working skill.
most of my hives were started as packages on top bars and now that they have done there first down size i'll feed in store bought frames with sc foundation.
i do have five lc hives with dark, chemical ridden combs that i aquired late last year. this spring (middle of febuary first of march) i plan on transfering just the combs with brood into double deep long hives and feeding in just top bars. i've found the queen tends to lay in new comb and count on removing the old comb before the end of the season.
so far i've only crushed and strained and plan on producing cut comb. if i relied on an extractor i might not be so cavalier about frames.

[empilolo]

hope it is OK to add a post to this thread - I was away for the week attending a beekeeping workshop at Ijebu-Ode near Lagos.

They are using standard KTBH and what they call "modified" Langstroth hives. These "modified" hives consist of a Langstroth type bottom board, hive body and cover, but with frameless topbars. No foundation, not even starter strips. Ridged top bars with gaps.

They tend to simply place two empty "supers" in the bush and wait for swarms to move in. The bees, A. m. adansonii, tend to move into the upper box and start their broodnest there as well as some honey, later move to the lower box to store honey and fill that.

Boxes with straight sides, but did not see any combs attached to the sides, neither brood nor honey combs.

Measured honey comb (natural) cell widths, 4.6 mm. All hives opened appeared very healthy, did not observe varroa nor any SHB - only one beek out of about 20 complained of pests, apparently having SHB in one of his hives (weak hive) giving him problems. Bees vigorously attacked any small critters at the hive.

The modified Langstroth hives are very popular with them (all new hives are the "modified" type) and I hate to admit this, they looked good in practice; strong and healthy. Time will tell and but I will make one or two myself for comparison later on.

[sierrabees]

Great information for those of us who are still playing with the idea of TBH. The modified Langstroth would certainly save a lot of time and trouble if there isn't much worrey about getting the comb in and out without damage.

[Michael Bush]

My concern has been that the bees would attach the comb from the top bars to the top bars of the bottom box. I assume they didn't? Or at least not enough to be a problem?

[empilolo]

The colony had been but recently established. The beek does not keep records and his information on when the swarm moved in was vague.

The hive had around 20 bars per box. I counted ten frames raising brood. The colony appeared to be still building up - location at transition zone from forest to savannah. We are now in the middle of the dry season (Nov - Mar/Apr) which is the main flow period of that area.

The box on top was full; brood and honey (some capped already) while they were just starting on the bottom box; they were building comb. All comb on bars that were removed were quite straight, minimal curving at the edges. No burr comb - no combs removed (5 honey, 4 brood) were attached to either sides or lower bars. Perhaps because the colony is still young.

The top bars were all plain wood, flat V shaped with a "sharp" edge. No kerfs, no starter strips, not even rubbed with wax. The boxes are simple wooden squares, rabbeted on two sides to hold the top bars.

Bees were "agitated" but not in attack mode; not chasing. Local practice is to do what needs doing in a calm manner, but without wasting time. Hives are opened as brief as is possible. Brood nests are normally left alone.

Honey was harvested by simply cutting off the comb, leaving about 1 inch of capped comb on the bars and those bars were put back into the hive immediately.

On top of the cover, underneath the metal sheet rain protection, was a big ant's nest. No sign of the ants "harvesting" from inside the hive - due to the hive being opened ants getting near the hive interior were vigorously attacked by the bees.

Last but not least - one beek there has a hive at his house about 5 feet from the entrance gate of his garden. People pass the hive all the time, no attacking incident. Pure African Bees.

Personal observation. To remove simple top bar comb - especially the first one - from these modified Langstroth hives is a bit tricky. Rather than rabbeting the boxes I intend to give it a try with square top bar hives, stackable in the Langstroth manner.

[spunky]

empilolo:
Your posts give perspective to me I sometimes lose, eventhough I am married to a wonderful asian woman from a poor country. Thank You and please continue posting.

regards
Brad

[Michael Bush]

I was thinking of playing with some square box, stackable top bar hives, but I doubt I'll have the time this next year. Maybe in another year or two...

Too many other projects.

[Baloo]

Where the top bars meet the hive body is an important thing. I have had really good luck just leaving the bars an hive body untouched (with sloped sides). The bars and body meet at a point. This makes the bars easy to remove because of little propolis build up.

As to bees building comb all over the place in a foundationless langstroth hive... I suppose it can and will happen, but like a tbh once they get "on track" they usually stay that way. All of my bees seem to use the foundationless frames just fine with a very minimal amount of problems.

I will post some pictures soon.
Cheers

[JaiPea]

empilolo:
> To remove simple top bar comb - especially the first one - from
> these modified Langstroth hives is a bit tricky. Rather than
> rabbeting the boxes I intend to give it a try with square top bar
> hives, stackable in the Langstroth manner.

How do you plan to stack without using a rabbet? The bees need space to move up the stack so the bars cannot be full width and a box sitting on top of spaced narrow bars will be like a sieve with an exit/entrance between every bar.

Also, if these are top bars only and not frames, won't the bees build comb contiguously from bottom to top, incorporating the bar in a continious comb? They are unlikely to treat each set of bars as a floor not to be joined.

Michael Bush:
> I was thinking of playing with some square box, stackable top bar
> hives, but I doubt I'll have the time this next year. Maybe in
> another year or two...

Slobodan Jankovic's site at http://www.pcela.co.yu/IndexE.htm has interesting information, and his description of Alpine hives (http://www.pcela.co.yu/alpine_hive_1.htm) has had me hooked for quite a while.

No rabbet is one of the seldom mentioned benefits of a long hive (whether TBH or w/frames), it is so much easier to move combs around. So far have not embarked on building any yet because have not solved the puzzle of how to stack without a rabbet.

JP

[empilolo]

How do you plan to stack without using a rabbet? The bees need space to move up the stack so the bars cannot be full width and a box sitting on top of spaced narrow bars will be like a sieve with an exit/entrance between every bar. The width of my topbars is 32 mm (I have a few 30 mm too) at both ends and for 50 mm towards the middle. Inbetween I reduce the width by 4 mm each side, so when you join them there is an 8 mm gap, while the ends close tight.

Two sides of the box are higher by the thickness of the topbars on which the next upper box, resp. the top cover, rests. I shall draw this as soon as possible.


Also, if these are top bars only and not frames, won't the bees build comb contiguously from bottom to top, incorporating the bar in a continious comb? Right, that is what I expected too. But they did not. Unfortunately, the hive is far away and the owner does not use the internet, so I cannot ask him whether they still continue to build "by the book".

Anyway, I am going to try this and will build a hive as soon as I have a bit of spare time.