How to get bees from LANG. to TBH ?
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I'm a fairly new beek, and I've never tried it, so I'm not sure how helpful my advice will be. Your method sounds like it should work -- basically, it's like you'd be creating a package of bees, but they're already happy with their queen. I might be worried about them absconding, though. If you can attach some comb to a top bar, that would probably be a good thing.
I've also seen videos of people doing what's called a chop and crop. In this video, Phil Chandler describes the method. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHHTcHtwUuE. Of course, you could only do this if you had wax foundation in the Lang frames (no plastic). Personally, I think it looks sort of gruesome, but it seems to work.
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will your top bars fit in the Lang? That's how I got my start-- with 4 drawn combs of brood & pollen. Then if you transfer them to the TBH with the queen and shake in all those bees, you should be golden.
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If you want to use Ruthies idea, and your TBH bars are shorter than Lang frames, just temporarily screw a frame top bar (or a similar piece of wood) to the top of your TBH bar, then put that in the Lang to get built out.
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You can just put the queen and the bees in there. I have done it. That is basically what happens in a new hive with a package.
I did it a couple of seasons ago. It was not fun, but worked. I took the Lang frames and shook the bees into the THB, and closed up them up. I then cut the comb out of the Lang frames using a knife and wire snips. I then put a couple of little holes about half way down the cutout comb, and ran zip ties through them. I attached the zip ties to the top bar, with the comb hanging down. It was messy, with honey and cut up brood everywhere, but it worked. The comb I cut out was a couple seasons old, so it was tuff enough to stand up to the abuse. It might be different with newer comb. I then put the top bars with the comb hanging from them into the top bar with the bees. They attached the comb right off, I went back a few weeks later and cut off the plastic zip ties. It is still my strongest top bar.
You can hang some of the top bars in between the lang frames to get straight comb started in a similar way to "expanding the brood nest". The queen will most likely lay in the new comb (most cannot resist it). Then just grab those and shake some bees in just like making a split. You can toss in the queen and let the lang raise a new one. The brood will help you to "anchor" them.
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In my first year I did a chop n crop from a nuc to a TBH (I think I posted a thread on it). It was messy and probably hard on the bees. I had to use nippers to cut the foundation wire as I went along. It worked but if I already had Lang's I would do as Ruthie suggested.
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So this is what I'm doing, I've got a 5 frame deep nuc that has 3 frames of bees in it and I put in two "transitional top bars" which are 1-1/4" x 3/4" x 19" top bars with a wooden wedge attached to the bottom between frames with drawn comb
![Beehive Bee Apiary Insect Beekeeper]()
After 2 days this is what the bees have built.
Over time I will super this nuc with another 5 frame deep box and just keep putting the transitional top bars between frames with drawn comb and I will eventually make a split. Or rather than making a split, I may just take the top bars I get out of this and put them in my TBH and just shake the rest of the bees into the top bar hive (and gently place then queen in with them). I'll then put the top bar hive where the entrance of the old hive was. Hopefully that way they will be able to build up strong enough to make it though the winter.
After 2 days this is what the bees have built.
Over time I will super this nuc with another 5 frame deep box and just keep putting the transitional top bars between frames with drawn comb and I will eventually make a split. Or rather than making a split, I may just take the top bars I get out of this and put them in my TBH and just shake the rest of the bees into the top bar hive (and gently place then queen in with them). I'll then put the top bar hive where the entrance of the old hive was. Hopefully that way they will be able to build up strong enough to make it though the winter.
I use a process similar to what Native Bee has described, though I don't use deeps. Place some of the Top Bars from the Top Bar hive between combs in the brood nest of the Langstroth hive, in a few days they will have started combs on the top bars and usually the queen will start laying in them, even before they're finished. Once the queen has laid in these new Top Bar combs, you can then move the Langstroth to a different location, place the Top Bar hive in the location the Langstroth used to occupy. Then put the Top Bars with their new comb starts into the Top Bar hive, then, after catching and caging their queen for safety, shake the bees from their Langstroth combs into the Top Bar hive, then gently release their queen in there with them. Close it up and let them grow. After this process I usually give the Langstroth frames with their various resources to a weaker colony or colonies that can use them.
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Yeah the only reason I'm using a Deep Nuc is that is all that is available to me at the moment. Once I've transferred the bees to the TBH I plan to either save these and use them for swarm traps, or cut them down to mediums to use for some medium langs I plan to keep in the future.
Joseph Clemens, how successful has this method been for you? I just kinda came to the conclusion that something like this would work and built some transitional top bars but obviously i'm not the first to think of something like this.
Joseph Clemens, how successful has this method been for you? I just kinda came to the conclusion that something like this would work and built some transitional top bars but obviously i'm not the first to think of something like this.
I've done shook swarms from Lang Lang style hives so I don't see why it would not work from Lang to TBH. I find the queen and put her in a cage, and hang her between two frames in the new box, plugging the candy hole with mini marshmellows. In this case it would be between two top bars. Then I shake all the bees into the new box, and distribute the frames to other Langs in my yard. I put the queen in a cage to let the bees release her, I figure it would reduce the chances of them absconding. I've done this from Lang to Lang in the past at the start of a strong honey flow to get new comb built and harvest comb honey. Good luck on this adventure of yours Glock.
It has worked extremely well. I haven't had one fail yet. I've done it about a half-dozen times, now. It's amazing how fast the Top Bar hives becomes fully established using this technique. If the flow is weak or non-existent, it may be necessary to feed generously. Sometimes, to get more of the Top Bars started with comb, I put a few of them in various hives, then round them up when I'm ready to do the transfer. During our mesquite flow, some hives build nearly complete combs on the Top Bars, overnight and filled with eggs.
If the Top Bars are shorter than Langstroth Top Bars, I fasten them beneath a strip of wood that is the length of Langstroth Top Bars, and if the Top Bars are longer than Langstroth Top Bars, I just let them stick out on one end.
If the Top Bars are shorter than Langstroth Top Bars, I fasten them beneath a strip of wood that is the length of Langstroth Top Bars, and if the Top Bars are longer than Langstroth Top Bars, I just let them stick out on one end.
That sounds like my best bet thank you .
I only have 1 TBH my wife built me but I have never run one yet so it's all new to me.
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