Sloped Sides - Once and For All

[shuali]

Hi - I'm new to beekeeping, attracted to TBHs after learning that "less is more" in other areas of agriculture. Also wood is expensive here, as are conventional kits.

After much reading, I am sitting down to finalize my hive design.

SO:
Is there conclusive opinion from the more experienced folks about the value of sloped sides?

Reading back through this forum, I see that Mr. Murrell and Mr. Bush don't think there's much to it, while Mr. McPherson does - just taking the folks who seem to have the most extensive beekeeping experience.

The Internet turns up conflicting reports and claims. In general, reports from developing regions support the traditional, sloped design. Here's an example:

http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/in...n-of-top.shtml

Of course, these are largely pure-blooded African bees being kept in the tropics. So that may influence the bee-havior.

Bottom, bottom line - before I finalize a design and start sawing precious wood: is there conclusive evidence one way or another?

Thanks!

[shuali]

- and Happy New Year, too!

[Baloo]

I have a TBH and several langstroth hives. I stopped using foundation in both of them about a two years ago. I would use the 120 Deg. sloped sides because it makes the comb more stable. The sloped sides make triangular shaped comb sections that have a large attached surface with the weight of the comb decreasing as it goes farther out. I am bad at explaining this. Think of is this way: picture a square shaped comb and a triangle shaped comb. The square shaped comb has MUCH more weight along the bottom because of its square shape; the bottom has the same width (and therfore weight) as the top. With the triangle you only have about 1/3 the width (and threfore weight) along the bottom as the square. To make a long story boring, I can take my TBH combs (triangular) and hold them on a horizontal plane and the combs do not fail. If I did the same with my foundationless langstroth frames the comb would definitely fail. as always with any TBH you need to be ready to trim comb and attachments.
Sorry if I am confusing (and for the run-on sentences)
Brandon

[Michael Bush]

If you want deeper comb, I think what Baloo (Brandon) is saying is valid. The sloped sided ones are more staple as there isn't a "floppy" corner of comb that tends to get stressed. Think of it this way on a 90 degree comb anytime the corner is anything but vertical, one corner is stressed. With a slope that corner has to be more than the angle of the slope to be stressed.

With shallow square sided combs this has not been a problem for me so I went with the medium dept Langstroth sized box for my straight sided one without any problems. My KTBH is deeper and the bars are shorter also without any problems.

I don't see a lot of attachments on either and I do see some on both. Have you read Satterfield's site?

http://www.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/main.htm

[shuali]

Yes, I have read John's site - and yours, and Dennis Murrell's.

Because of our mild climate, I assume that we are talking about managing several small flows of nectar - and the advice seems to be that periodic harvest of smaller combs is better in this case. (Still trying to get confirmation of this from the local Beekeeping Association, which is not really geared towards hobbyists.)

So I am sketching a box whose front face is approximately 30 by 50-60 centimeters - that's roughly 1 ft. high and 2 ft. wide for those not used to metric.

20 bars at roughly 3.5 cm. per bar (somewhere between 1-1/4 and 1-3/8 inches) gives me a length of 70-80 cm.

As a square box, that's 120 liters or roughly 30 gallons. Using sides sloped at 120 degrees, the volume is cut to around 72 liters.

Does this sound right?

[shuali]

Oops, I meant James Satterfield, not John!
A bit too much to drink last night....

[Michael Bush]

If I were going to do anything other than match the Langstroth top bar width, I'd go shorter. The bees stay straighter on a shorter bar. The want to make a curved comb and that curve gets off of the bar more at the ends of a long bar than a short bar. My KTBH has top bars only 15" long and 7/8" of that is hanging over the side, so the comb is only about 12 5/8" wide. They stay on the bar much better on that than the 19" bars in the Langstroth sized one. I'd say 19" is about the maximum I'd want to go.

Also, I'm not convinced that square is a good way to get the volume. A small cluster seems to do better with the walls closer not further.

I probably won't build any more slope sided ones since interchangeability with the Langstroths is such a nice feature.

[buckbee]

I back Baloo on this one - I had a vertical wall TBH but it was the devil of a job to raise a bar with comb still attached - esp in hot weather. Sloping sides - while trickier to build - actually save on wood and I've had no attachment problems since I started using them - and no comb breakages.

I use 17" top bars as I originally planned to build hybrids that would take British standard frames as well, but the attachment problem put an end to that idea. This length works well for me and is easy to handle even when full of brood and honey.

I'm taking Michael's advice on hive volume though - mine are a bit short at 36".

[jim b]

> I had a vertical wall TBH but it was the devil of a job to raise a bar with comb still attached

I have found this to be true also. It's even difficult with the attachments cut as the comb is just a tad bit smaller than the inside of the hive all the way up until it clears the top. Not true for the sloped-sided variety.

>I probably won't build any more slope sided ones since interchangeability with the Langstroths is such a nice feature.

This is a nice feature, but i have built a sloped-sided hive to see what it's like first hand.

-j

[stangardener]

ask two differant beekeepers get three differant answers.
i don't think the original poster will get any once and for all or bottom, bottom line [img]smile.gif[/img]