managing tbh space, honey and brood

I am new to tbh. I am interested in building a tbh for my girl friend, a regular beekeeper who doesn't enjoy lifting supers. One of the things that isn't clear to me from information on the web, is how comb is rearranged over time as the hive develops, and I hear no mention of the use of queen excluders to segregate honey and brood.
Haven't seen a queen excluder design out there either. A couple sites spoke briefly about shuffling bars but in an unclear manner.

Can someone shed light on the above or point me to another website? thanks.

>I am new to tbh. I am interested in building a tbh for my girl friend, a regular beekeeper who doesn't enjoy lifting supers.

You can just build a long hive that takes regular frames. I have several. Pictures of them are on my web site.

>One of the things that isn't clear to me from information on the web, is how comb is rearranged over time as the hive develops, and I hear no mention of the use of queen excluders to segregate honey and brood.

Since I use none in my regular hives, I guess its a nonissue for me. The bees want to have a consolidated brood nest. The bees are not looking to have brood willy nilly all over the place. Sometimes with foundation the bees are desperate enough for drones, that the queen will lay some drone in odd places, but if you let them build drone comb this doesn't really happen. The honey will be in one area. The brood will be in another. It has always been that way.

>Haven't seen a queen excluder design out there either. A couple sites spoke briefly about shuffling bars but in an unclear manner.

I do try to work the brood nest to the back and expand the brood nest (and get good straight combs) by putting empty bars in the brood nest. But basically you can pull honey when you like and put in empty bars.

Thanks Michael. Yes, I've looked at your designs and others so I am enjoying coming up with my own design - you always have to try to build a better mousetrap, thats half the fun. Sounds then like its a pretty straight forward operation. Thank you for your prompt reply.

If you really want a queen excluder (which I think is a bad idea in any hive) you can saw a groove in the box vertically where you want it and cut one to fit. I have done this to make two queen hives out of a long hive. But, otherwise I haven't wanted one.