Thanks for replying. Hope you do well with your top bar hive in my location it's not too hot and it's not too cold I've been pretty fortunate with them. Since I just have five hives they work well for me. Plenty of honey for family and friends.
Thanks for the video found it a good learning tool. I have a top bar, in Australia, and I have a bucket of warm water and sponge to help keep things clean. I use a Les Crowder design which isn’t as deep as other designs reducing the risk of comb breaking. But yes I love top bars much easier than trying to lift a whole langstroth super . 👍
Ralf thanks for the comments I totally agree. You might want to check out one of my last videos here about top bar and layens hives. I’ve also found them to be very interesting to use. Hope all is going well in Australia. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tLRHtPrSZCs.html
I really work at getting my bees to build comb in the brood section then push outside bars to honey storage end lots of checker boarding in the spring. Comb management is the main reason I have to enter my TBHs l believe we have much fewer problems than frame beekeepers with small hive beetles and wax moths though because there are very few hiding places. I’m with you, overall TBHs make beekeepers lives better as long as we can deal with its differences
I agree, I would like to mention since I made this video, I watched a guy down in Australia. He would put a quarter inch dowel rod in the center of his top bars, and it would hang down about 6 to 7 inches in hoping to add support for the Comb. I did this this past year, and it seemed to help quite a bit on the honey bars. Will probably add dowels to a lot more.
Grab an large empty pump action hand wash or shampoo bottle rinse and fill with water. Put it in your kit and use to quickly wash your hands so you dont get honey all over your tools and everything. Works a treat. Use a small towel to dry your hands. Loose the tissues!
I’ve never had trouble carrying a short distance. But you are right driving long distance over bumpy road can do some damage to fresh comb. I have found it helps to keep the long length of the hive parallel to the tailgate of truck.
To get straight comb drawn always put the empty bar between 2 straight drawn comb. They will draw out honey combs wider but if you make sure to keep your bars tight together. Also if you have a shim of wood about the thickness of a yardstick you can use that as a spacer between the thicker honey combs. I'm 8 years in with 8 top bar hives. Adding empty bars between drawn combs is easiest. I do the same with my lang hives to get new comb drawn. I have combs that are 4-5 years old
Thanks for the advice. I’ll give it a try. How do you phase out old brood comb? I have one hive starting it’s 5th season, and it’s usually full of something making it hard to remove comb.
That’s a depends on answer. I usually catch swarms to fill empty hives. Early big swarms will build up and fill a lot of the hive it’s first year,and I’ve always been able to take a couple of bars of honey it’s first year. I’ve also had a hive swarm twice early and late in the season and only harvest a couple bars. The size of my bars were built on Phil chandler’s design 17.5 inch bars 1.5 inches wide. Honey bars average 5+ lbs. I probably take 20 to 30 lbs off a hive a year. I could do more not a commercial honey producer, so I leave plenty for winter and sometimes take leftovers in spring. Wax would be a guess, 1 to 2 lbs?
I'm new to beekeeping. This is my first year and I have 3 Langstroth hives. I decided to build additional hives and supers (I'm a decent wood worker) and while looking for plans to build hives, I happened across the top bar hives. Four dozen videos later and I'm thinking this is the way to go. I have some ideas for different things I want to try building, but I thought that maybe I should start with a 'proven' design for my first build (or two). What design would you recommend? Thanks
You might want to watch my video episode #46 on my top bar design. After building 3 designs this works best for me. You might get some ideas. I love my top bars and how they work. Also episode #62 on my layens build. I’m interested in seeing how they will work this year. Top bars are easier and cheaper to build than layens but both have their positives and negatives. If you are a wood worker you’ll have no problem and will come up with your own better designs. One thing I’ve learned on either hive you want your bars to be 1.5 inches wide no less, works best for bees building their own foundation less comb. Wish you well on your builds.
