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I live in south texas as well (super hot and humid) and I don't ventilate my hives at all...no screen bottoms, no vents...just a bottom/end entrance...on the new hives we are putting up I'm...

outside looking in, both my original hive and my modified hive are completely full (thriving), I haven't opened them yet

per a previous post my original hive swarmed 3 times last year...the hive...

I let them walk out on their own. ;)

since everyone is throwing their .02 in...I personally wouldn't blow on bees to move them...they don't respond well to CO2, you could just use a little piece of wood to push/herd them off, I've found...

had one of my hive swarms and actually thought it was queenless because it went for an extremely long time and I still couldn't find the queen or open brood, this was after I saw hatched queen...

been tough this year on my hives for swarming, the city only allows me two hives so I'm a bit limited on multiple hives

I had one golden mean top bar hive (read: too small) and it swarmed in...

yep, even with beautifully crafted top bars...as you said above, monitor frequently and use guide comb if you have it, you still have to watch it because of bee space though, one of my hives started...

I've had problems with straight comb on every single one of them. The 2 hives we built this year have real bad cross comb, we cut and attempted to fix one last week and I'm doing another in the next...

looks similar to a setup I have on two of mine...I will post some pics of the old and new next to each other

I've had two for a while. Built straight from the plans or bought...bottom line, they will probably swarm every year. If you ask me, I think they did that on purpose (to encourage swarming).

We...

Generally, you are either going to need 2-3 bars of space to pull bars out or if it is a full hive you need to remove 2-3 bars so you can slide each back and pull it out.

unfortunately, it's a time thing for me, we had some packages arrive early and this hive was rushed...meaning we didn't get all the top bars cut out yet...finishing that this weekend

once I have...

Installed a new TBH couple weeks ago, gave them a while before I wanted to mess with them...looks like they got off track with the comb...straight side to side but not centered and as they got about...

Charlie, I contacted them and they said they were still waiting to get more in. I plan on ordering one whenever they are back in stock. Also, do those have a hat style hood (no pic on their site...

I highly doubt your bees are going to tell you it was a wrong decision. Your rationale is good IMO, there aren't too many trees out there with screened bottoms. :)

I would think a screen would...

what is interesting is I didn't have a single comb collapse last year and I'm in south Texas...most days were over 100 and we had an extreme drought last year

however, I'm thinking some of it has...

well, I'm thinking in terms of bees moving air...I will see my bees line up across the bottom entrance on the end and cool the hive all the time, they line the whole width...if it was a side...

I am in south Texas and I build my hives with a solid floor...it seems a lot of people build screened bottoms thinking about ventilation, however, that my actually be counter productive (in regards...

I believe bees will pretty much always build the comb vertical to the ground, regardless of attachment angle at the top...the angles they use for the cells is very precise from my understanding.

well, all I can say is that I personally think that hanging the queen cage in a new top bar hive has to be one of the worst pieces of advice around, the bees will build crooked comb and that is an...

Is that bad? I did one that way and one the other...both I removed the non-candy end, covered with my finger put on bottom of hive (on top of the dumped bees), one I left the cage in and closed up...

yeah, I saw that...just wondering if the the mann lake and pigeon mt. suits are identical

I don't see how direct release is bad advice in a top bar hive. Check this: http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm#faqs (near the bottom, typical mistakes). I think you can trust Michael...

seems mannlake doesn't have stock, they are about $20 more ($165 vs $145) than the pigeonmountain ventilated suits...are those two the same?

mannlake also doesn't show the veil type (unless I...

RCorl: It isn't going to hurt to feed a new package install. They definitely burn a lot drawing out the comb. In general, bees will stop taking the syrup if they have a better source.