Nuc to top bar?

3155 Views 8 Replies 8 Participants Last post by GLOCK, Apr 24, 2014

GLOCK

Discussion Starter · Apr 6, 2014

So I have a nuc that I over wintered and I want to put the bees in my top bar hive . How would I go about doing this .

Thank you. My first TBH.

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What I do is shake frame of bees into the topbar. Remove foundation and cut it with tinsnips to fit topbar and wire to bar. Repeat until your nuc is all in the topbar. Small cutoffs could be wired or rubberbanded to topbars. Cut wire in a couple weeks.

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mpabe

· #3 · Apr 7, 2014

I plan to do the same thing soon. This is a link to the best video I've found on this process...hope it helps!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=42VQTR_RUk4

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KILLERBEE

· #4 · Apr 23, 2014

I have not transferred a nuc to a TBH, but I set swarm traps with top bars hoping to catch a swarm to transfer to a TBH. What I do is take a top bar and screw a Lang frame top bar (the top bar of a standard frame cut flush on the bottom) to the top and it fits perfectly in any standard box. I'm sure you could trade these out in your nuc as they build comb and the queen lays eggs and transfer to your TBH. Might take longer, but without tying comb?

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shannonswyatt

· #5 · Apr 23, 2014

Glock, I wouldn't move from an overwintered Lang to a TBH. A chop and crop is hard on the bees and in the end you have frankenbars that you are stuck with for some time. TBH's are fun, but decimating a Lang isn't worth it.

Along the same lines as KillerBee if you bars are 19 inchs buy 1 1/4 you could get a little comb drawn on them by putting a single bar in a bunch of your hives. Just don't leave them in until they are fully drawn or you will need to trim them.

You could do a shaken swarm as well. Or you could put out swarm traps to get a swarm. Or you could sell the nuc and purchase a package and a case of beer, probably pretty good beer!

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Greenride

· #6 · Apr 24, 2014

I did the reverse of what you are proposing, but it might work for you.
I cut notches into both ends of two bars, mine are 18" . This allowed me to place the bars in the top bar hive on edge. This left a gap between bars so that the bees could pass between the bars. I then put a standard deep lang with foundation on top for the bees to move up into.
They started eating foundation and weren't drawing out anything in the lang. I put a couple of drywall screws into the end of a few(3) top bars with brood and moved them up into the lang. For a week I left the top bars together in the lang and still no sign of drawing of foundation. I put another lang on top with a quart of 1:1. Nothing
The modified top bars (on their skinny edges) below in the topbar hive where getting drone comb built on them. I added another topbar with screws to the lang. This time with a lang frame with new foundation between this new topbar and the other top bars up in the lang.
Finally after another 7-10 days I was just going to pull the lang off and add a queen cell from another nuc I started and move to a new stand. However they pulled a queen cell on the newest topbar and it was sealed. I moved the lang and shook several frame of bees into this 10 frame deep (from the same booming topbar hive).
So far they ate or moved all the wax from the one sheet of foundation and I have zero drawn (on foundation) comb in this hive and 5 frames (one with honey/pollen) from the topbar hive, 5 lang frames with foundation. I'm not sure if it's too early in the season to draw foundation or if top bar bees just don't know how?
The queens should be emerging this weekend.
Maybe I should buy that case of good beer and wait and see what happens.
Glock maybe you could modify a few top bars as I did and see if you have more luck with the bees moving down.
Fabian

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RCorl

· #7 · Apr 24, 2014

GLOCK said:
So I have a nuc that I over wintered and I want to put the bees in my top bar hive . How would I go about doing this .

Thank you. My first TBH.

Glock, good looking tbh, however I'm surprised that you would go this route, from reading your posts over the last year. Just had a different impression of your approach. Good luck with the tbh. I have enjoyed them, and hope you do too. BTW, does the hinged bottom board cover a screened bottom? There's been much discussion here about them.

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WBVC

· #8 · Apr 24, 2014

As of last night I now have a TBH and as Glock need to figure how to get bees from a Lang into the TBH. The video of clipping the frames looked quite straight forward yet my experience has been that things go quite differently from what one sees on a video

Would it work to clip one frame with open brood and just shake bees off a few frames and then introduce a Queen? Would the single frame with open brood hold the bees to that hive? For me the TBH will be in the same vicinity as the Langs.

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GLOCK

Discussion Starter · #9 · Apr 24, 2014

RCorl said:
Glock, good looking tbh, however I'm surprised that you would go this route, from reading your posts over the last year. Just had a different impression of your approach. Good luck with the tbh. I have enjoyed them, and hope you do too. BTW, does the hinged bottom board cover a screened bottom? There's been much discussion here about them.

Yes the hinged bottom board does cover a screened bottom. She did a really good job on it so I have to learn to keep a TBH and that includes over wintering so I have a lot to learn but that's ok one thing I like about beekeeping it's always some thing new. I think I am going with putting some top bars in my langs. and then when there's some brood put them in the TBH with the queen bet it works out just fine I just have to wait till I see drones.

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Nuc to top bar?

GLOCK

kramerbryan

mpabe

KILLERBEE

shannonswyatt

Greenride

RCorl

WBVC

GLOCK

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