Bar thickness

[JD]

I have read 1 1/8", 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" plus some make 1 1/2" for honey

So what is right?

[limulus]

Hi,
I use mostly 1 3/8" width brood bars. I also use 1 1/2" bars in the storage area. They seem to draw out the 1 3/8" bars nicely with little to no overlap or cheating once you get them building straight. If you are just starting out a new hive I might suggest you just go with all brood bars (10 or so) and a false back, then when they really get going feed some wider bars in behind them (after removing or relocating the false back). My hives all have around 12-14 brood bars or so, the rest are storage size. All my established hives have 2 storage bars up front, then the brood bars, then storage bars. There is always a bit of shuffling, depending on all kinds of things, so no rules are hard and fast.

[TX Ashurst]

I have some bars 1 1/4" and some the width of a 2X6 piece of lumber - 1 1/2". But I like to rotate the brood combs out and replace with fresh bars, so I've decided to make them all the same size. Once the bees have straight comb, I think I can feed 1 1/2" bars into the brood nest without too much problem. The jury is still out, though.

[stangardener]

if the bars are all to be the same size i would suggest 1 3/8".
i've never heard of using 1 1/8" bars.

[Michael Bush]

I use 1 1/4" for the brood nest and 1 1/2" for honey. Some people use 1 3/8" for everything, but when I did the bees disagreed:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesnaturalcell.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm

[Jon McFadden]

I wound up using 1-1/2" bars by accident. I thought I had made some 1-1/4" bars, but when I installed the bees, all I could find were the 1-1/2" ones.
Here is a link that shows the "KTBH Results":
http://nordykebeefarm.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=6&PN=1

[spunky]

Nice pictures Jon, thanks for sharing