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Back to front?
New to top bar but not to bee keeping. Just built my 1st top bar hive with 28 bars divided 50/50 with brood bars no's 1 - 14 of 1 3/8" & rest at 1 1/2". Hived a swarm 17 days ago and after a day put a feeder on bar 27 to welcome the bees. Opened hive today to check progress and find that 5 bars have been 'drawn out' . These are no's 26 to 22 at back of hive. Nice looking comb, dead straight but need advice on whether to move them to front, leave alone or what?.....thanks
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Re: Back to front?
Hi, Green --
Is the entrance to the TBH in the middle of one long side or at an end? That might make a difference in the suggestions you get.
I think you will find most TBH beekeepers, newbie (including me) and experienced, will say the stores need to be at one end of the brood nest at the start of winter, usually the end furthest from the entrance.
Before that time, the opinions will vary. Some people use a follower board to restrict the colony to a smaller volume of space near the entrance and move the follower back as the bees need more room. Others don't use followers. They let the bees build where they prefer to build, as long as the comb is straight on the bar.
You may think of the wider bars as honey bars and the narrower ones as brood bars, but the bees obviously do not share your perspective. My bees don't read my mind either.... 
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Re: Back to front?
Thanks for reply DeeAnna,
Entrance is at end of hive, so bees have gone full length of hive to build comb. Have got a follower board so could move everything forward, but was interested if bees had a tendancy to work in a particular direction in a TBH i.e front to back so regardless of where they decide to build the first comb (if that is the case then I need to move them forward quickly) if not and they now continue to head forwards towards entrance then maybe I should let them 'get on with it'. I suppose 'I read the book' and the bees didn't, and because of this expected/ hoped 'text book behaviour' I should have known better with my years of keeping a few National Hives.
As far as brood/honey bars, thought when making the bars that the bees would need to be pretty selective in choosing between the two sizes, looks like I could have made them all the same and maybe use spacers on the bars for honey but thought that would make working the hive more difficult. One of the attractions of the TBH was ease of use so hoped to keep 'parts' to a minimum.
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Re: Back to front?
Quick reply -- some of us have observed that the bees are quite willing to build the brood nest forward (toward the end entrance) if there are empty bars in front so they have the space. So I would not worry too much about the situation you have.
As far as spacers, yes, more parts, but they do give more flexibility. One person pointed out that they also provide some "wiggle room" so you can remove a bar in the middle of the hive without having to start at one end.
I haven't used them, but I'm going in that direction. I've been hand-spacing the bars a bit further apart in the honey area, leaving a less-than-bee-space opening between them.
More later .... work calls.
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Re: Back to front?
Last edited by DeeAnna; 07-30-2011 at 04:16 PM.
Reason: found more...
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Re: Back to front?
Thanks Deeanna
Its been a long day for you so thanks for taking the trouble.
Have been looking at postings this evening so have covered a few you listed but will follow up on the others. Think this top bar idea will give me a new lease of life on bee keeping, something different but with the same goal, pollinating my fruit trees and hopefully some honey in the future (next year if me and the bees get to grips with this). Probably find with experience that I will need to make modifications to the hive I built, or build a Mark II version with the improvements. Thanks again.
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