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production..tbh vs langstroth

13K views 31 replies 15 participants last post by  JaiPea 
#1 ·
I'm guessing the langstroth hive will produce more honey?? if so normally how much more??thanks!!
 
#27 ·
Leaving the troll's arguments about beekeeping as a business aside, as a hobbyist, I did find I got a. an easier time working some very defensive bees with a TBH versus their sisters in a Lang and b. I got to keep more of the honey, with less work and a lot less mess by doing squeeze/strain extraction than with a Lang-style extractor. It seemed like the hand-cranked extractor left a quarter of the honey in the comb whereas crush/squeeze extraction got it all.

Mark
 
#28 ·
"I got to keep more of the honey, with less work and a lot less mess by doing squeeze/strain extraction than with a Lang-style extractor. It seemed like the hand-cranked extractor left a quarter of the honey in the comb whereas crush/squeeze extraction got it all."

That's fine, but bear in mind that there was a lot of honey you didn't get because the bees had no drawn comb to store nectar in in the first place.

If you were using a small-diameter radial extractor (as commonly available) and/or the honey was cold it is not surprising that you would leave a good deal of honey behind.

I agree that TBHs are great for the DIY/backyard enthusiast and they are easier to tend but the crops cannot be expected to be even half what a properly managed Lang could produce in extracting supers.

Though I enjoyed playing with tbh's Roger Morse used to put them down as a waste of time and material. After all, he contended, with just a little more effort frames could be made for the same box, and then you'd have a frame hive which you could super w/comb, and production would go *way* up. Also, he was convinced that colonies did not thrive as well in a horizontal configuration. He had been around the world many times and was quite familiar with the results being obtained with all different types of equipment and management styles.

You start making little improvements to the basic TBH design and it isn't long before you are back to a box with frames. But for sheer simplicity and lowest initial cost the TBH is an interesting and educational tool that will yield a nice albeit limited honey crop.

Much the same situation as the comb honey producer, whether using rounds or frames.
It is apples and oranges, to some extent. Like the section or bulk comb honey producer you can't expect your crop to even approach what the extraced honey producer can achieve. It's a different situation, although a multi-story Lang would likely produce more comb honey than TBH due to the vertical arrangement.

With a TBH one can focus on some of the finer points and enjoy producing a clean and natural product with a minimum of expenditure and a lot of satisfaction. No combs to store. No wax moths. The drawbacks as I see them are the odd crooked comb building problems and the marked lack of portability, but others have shown that with experience there are ways to manage both to some degree.
 
#29 ·
Hi Jim and Everyone,

All bee bantering aside, I would like to commend Jim on his efforts to improve the lives of other beekeepers around the world. Don't ask me how I got to this subject in a tbh vs lang forum :>)))

And I hope you succeed. But be careful as it is very easy to repeat the agricultural errors of exporting non-sustaneable solutions, which can leave people worse off when the markets, weather, rain or politics change for the worse. Such cases are rampant in Africa where cotton and the attendant fertilizer, chems, supplanted the native subsistence farming. Those that bought into the process make some fast money. But when the market changed they were left in starvation, with land that would not support their subsistence farming. They starved, while their neighbors who maintained the traditional ways continued on as they had for almost a thousand years, poor but fed.

One of the best ways to improve the lives of impoverished beekeepers might initially involve more education that capitalization. Maybe there are areas, or a mindset, that prevents them from attaining a maximum profit from what they are currently using.

The successes in African beekeeping involved establishing a stable and non-corrupt coop type marketing system. Then when the beekeepers got a little surplus cash, more modern methods of honey production became viable.

And I've gone back and read a few of my posts in this forum. And I've shot more than a few insults, rather than holes for which I appologize. Nope, putting a smiley face on them doesn't change them for me either. But I can go back and edit them.

Regards
Dennis
Is too! Is not! IS TOO! IS NOT! IS TOO, IS TOO, IS TOO!!! IS NOT, IS NOT, IS NOT, IS NOT!!! says Jimmy and Denny just before the teacher took each one of them to timeout. :>)

[ March 11, 2006, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: B Wrangler ]
 
#30 ·
I think it's important to point out in this discussion where there are basically two opposing views on the statements, that one side (Dennis) has had several years experience working and observing TBH's and the behavior of those bees, and the other side (Jim) has not had such experience but is basically relying on secondhand knowledge to back his statements. This was also the case in the DL discussion. I am all to familiar with these discussions as I've had them before with people regarding small cell, and I finally gave up because it was futile trying to discuss with those who wouldn't do the work themselves to verify.

I know Jim is off base in some of his comments because I have also observed some of the same things Dennis has in my TBH (fast comb construction, etc.) While he makes some good points, making comments such as

<<Oh, yes... suuuure... <snip> Get real!>>
<<Oh, yes of COURSE... <snip> again, get real!>>

lets me know he has no firsthand experience on the topic.

Regards,
Barry
 
#31 ·
Well, I've been out of town and haven't been able to keep up on the rare occasions I have a minute of free time. Let me just say that I DO have TBHs and have had them for a while. I built my first in 1975. I don't see a difference except in a remote yard with Langstroth boxes you can throw on a bunch of supers and come back in the fall. This allows outyards that otherwise are not practical with a THB. With a TBH you need to harvest more often than that and if the hives are long ways, this may not be practical.

>So come up with a TBH that can be supered,
and my objections go away.

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/LongHiveSupered.JPG

Like this?

>Come up with
an approach that does not destroy drawn
comb, and my objections go away.

I get more for comb honey than extracted. I thought you raised comb honey? Don't you get more for it?

> Otherwise,
TBH bees simply have to work too hard to
produce the same amount of harvestable honey
as Langstroth-equipped bees.

In remote areas, quite often it is the shipping that controls the amount of folding money you can get. Beeswax is worth more when you include the cost of the shipping, than honey.
 
#32 ·
Maybe a few numbers might help in this debate as knowing the capacity of a Lang hive and a TBH provides another dimension on the issues being argued.

Lang Deep 11.1 gal 42 liters
Lang Medium 7.7 gal 29 liters

If you assume two deeps or three mediums for brood and four supers for honey, the total hive capacity is 53-54 gallons and 200/203 liters.

The TBH size which Scot McPherson promotes in Wikipedia is 13.8 gal/52 liters. The Crowder TBH is 16.4 gallons/62 liters.

The TBH sizes Dennis (BWrangler) uses are 35.7/125 to 41.6/157 liters. He has written that his experience suggests the largest is too big in his area and that the midsize of 37/140 TBHs is most suitable.

The 'natural/ideal' size of a hive is influenced by climate, flow intensity, flow periods, rural/city, pasture/trees, crops/natural etc.

Conclusions:

- Langstroths minimize labor. Supers can be added during flows to keep bees producing, and the task of extraction can be concentrated in short periods using casual labor to handle the workload. Mechanization boosts productivity and reduces labor costs.

- TBHs need consistent attention to remove honey during flows to prevent becoming honey bound and subsequent swarming. Extraction/Crushing is a near-continuous operation which requires no additional labor and little/no justification for mechanization.

Honey no longer appears to be a source of significant profit to many commercial beekeepers in the United States, and the complaint is that the price received is too low because of the cheap honey being imported from overseas.

In this regard beekeeping is no different to the latest highest tech product you have in your house, it too was made in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc. All this does is prove the points that Adam Smith made in 1776 when "The Wealth of Nations" was published.

- The Lang lends itself to a high overhead operation in terms of both capital and working capital, in the hopes (and reality) of higher productivity per unit. For several months of the year there are storage requirements to protect the assets of supers and fully drawn comb, during which the risk is run of predators (wax moths) destroying the value of these assets.

- The TBH lends itself to a low overhead operation in terms of both capital and working capital.
Storage/loss costs are virtually non-existent because the assets are being protected by the inhabitants. Increased production can be achieved by adding more TBHs or taking a hybrid approach and use supers by assuming the risks of asset storage/loss during winter.

There should be no argument here, as these are economic facts of life.

On a more philosophical note:

- Langs involve the same issues of overcrowding as occur with cattle (feedlots) and people (cities). There is more stress, more medication, more.... but most of us choose to live in cities where we trade off those things for what we perceive as a 'better' life.

- TBHs reduce the overcrowding aspect because a hive does not have as many bees, and the comb is constantly being renewed. Since TBHers tend to replace brood comb on a regular basis, the queen is laying in fresh comb and that appears to be a factor contributing to hive health.

It is hard for beekeepers to draw straight lines in the sand because any factor that one considers an absolute can be disproved by another beek somewhere else who is dealing with a different climate, different breed of bee, different flows, etc. For example, it makes good sense for cold-weather beeks to like breeds that have small clusters over winter which can survive on smaller stores whereas warm weather beeks could care less.

On a personal note:

- As a Lang keeper I dreaded extraction and happily bought more supers as needed in order to avoid doing it more than once a year.
- As a TBH keeper I don't care any more, it is easy to walk around with a bucket, cut off the combs and let the honey drain courtesy of gravity rather than extraction.

Both methods work, simply a different way of achieving the same end.

Background:

My experience is strictly backyard in an area where the winters are mild and bees can gather nectar/pollen from trees/gardens at least half the time.

- Langs are no longer being used for honey production, but are used for splits, swarms and nucs.

- Two sizes of TBH are used and both are rectangular because I see no advantage to the sloping sides. The bottoms are open, screened with #8 cloth and stand high on legs (the frames are at desk height to avoid having to bend over).

- Narrow TBHs are 12Wx10Dx32L long with a capacity of 16 gallons. These are pleasant to work with and easier to relocate. If the frames/bars are to be used in a Lang/Compatible for splitting or some other purpose, a 3/8"x19" ply strip is screwed on.

- Compatible TBHs are 19Wx10Dx32L with a capacity of 23 gallons, and the top bars can be exchanged with Lang frames.

Strong, concentrated flows do not occur in this area and my observations of comb production will likely conflict with those who live in areas that have strong flows.

- Full foundation is rarely fully drawn, the bees chew holes in the corners and often along most of the the bottom bar.
- 1/2" starter strips encourage comb to be started along most of the top bar.
- On 1/8" center rails the bees start near center and radiate out in a semi circular pattern. They tend to begin on the next top bar rather than fill out the full width of the bar.

Fully drawn comb appears to be produced in less time on starter strips and rails than on full foundation but I have no statistics to confirm this. BTW, this has nothing to do with TBH or Lang, it is true of both.

JP
 
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