Brood, honey and larva

[paul.h]

I checked my Top Bar Hive today and found that they have comb on 17 out of 30 bars, Every bar had Brood, larva and honey on them. I wanted to claim some honey next August . Should I build a top bar queen excluder? I thought the ladies would stop the brood chamber around 14 bars or so. Any thoughts or suggestions or comments? THank you very much. First year beek. The hive has a end entrance.

[kaisfate]

They must not have read the book! It is my understanding that a queen will not cross a full bar of honey...good luck with that. I think a queen excluder would be easy in a TB...just cut it to fit and attach it with frames on the side walls. Keep us updated on how you do it...I may be interested in following you plans next year.

[gmcharlie]

she will stop expanding at some point. in the mean time the honey on top of the bar is their winter stores...

Normaly I find about 20 inches to be the point where they stop usualy, assuming that your bars are standard width, you should be gettng close to that.

[ncsteeler]

I have been out of my hives for soem time and finally went in this week end. I found similar esults on my 2 hives that are new packages from this year. Hive 1 , has about 15 bars of 28 in brood , which is mixed honey at top and brood at bottom, centered in the hive. And Hive 2 is about 19 bars of brood centered inthe hive. Seems they are more concerned with build up right now then honey stores. I assume it is very early inthe season so they will have time to build some stores before winter.

[BGhoney]

I was just getting on to post the same question. when the flow started I had 4 full frames of honey nice white, not capped yet I came back about 2 weeks later with my knife and drain board and now only 2 inches of honey at the top and brood below, all 22 frames have some stage of brood on it. Kinda bummed. It is fun to look at, but I can see the problem with getting honey. I opened up the first 5 bars 3/8ths of an inch and put a super on it with a lid, they have it 75% full of honey now, I'll get honey but was going for comb. Next year I'll cut a q excluder down to fit, and try that.

[dan k 1]

I have 2 tbh's both started this spring. The bees have built out 14 and 16 brood bars in each hive with 2 partial bars of capped honey behind that. I'm not sure on this, but, I wonder if you add empty bars into their brood nest during the spring build up, if that could create a cut off point for their brood nest. If anyone has any thoughts on this please reply I’m curious to know if this may or may not work.

Thanks
Dan

[luvin honey]

Well, this is what I did all spring and they just kept building up the broodnest. My 2 topbars have about 18 bars of brood, then some honey with a patch of brood in the middle. Even with a broodnest that enormous, one hive got honeybound (my oops) and swarmed. I'm hoping that some of the broodnest will be converted to honey stores as winter approaches.

[dan k 1]

are they new collonies? the reason I ask is because Im curious if they do not have to build comb for the brood nest maybe they will be able to store more honey if the brood comb/nest is allready established in the second year.
thanks
Dan

[luvin honey]

Yes, good point. Mine are new. I imagine first-year and second-year colonies have different goals and behave differently...

[Stevedore]

What are the inside dimensions of your hive? I have read that if the bars are too long and the hive too deep, you can have trouble getting separate combs of honey. I'm not sure what the "sweet spot" is for a hTBH, but I made mine on the smallish side - 14.5-inch top bars and 9-7/8 inches of interior space vertically. The sides are slanted at 115.5 degrees. This hive filled up very fast, but I do have distinctive all-honey combs at both ends of the brood nest.