# Cutting out of a TBH into the Langstroth



## Honeypeach (Mar 15, 2012)

Naive question here: Why did you want to go from TBH to Langstroth? It sounds like you do it regularly. Most people I know who are dealing with both types are going in the other direction.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Honeypeach said:


> Naive question here: Why did you want to go from TBH to Langstroth? It sounds like you do it regularly. Most people I know who are dealing with both types are going in the other direction.


I'd say you don't know the right kind of people. Are they tired of their bees dying in a Langstroth? What's the rationale? 

Did two more this morning. I don't do it frequently, just enough to get them out of the TBHs and into Langs. We have two more left to do. May end up giving one colony over to my dad's friend instead of keeping it. We'll see. 



Is this your first year with bees Honeypeach?


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## Montyb (May 27, 2013)

My wife and I did the same thing on our top bar that survived the winter up here in upper Michigan. (Italians). We didn't look for the queen had to do it fast because it was sunny but only about 56 degrees. We moved the top bar to the side set the Lang had 8 brood bars, started at the last one, shook the bees into the Lang, cut the comb and held it while Carol rubber banded it in frame then went to next one. When we were done put another deep on and feeder and closed it up. Must have shook the queen into the box because before we were finished bees were fanning on the porch and the bees on the cut bars that we proped against the porch marched into the hive. Was worried about the brood getting chilled but I guess because we did it so fast only say one dead larva on the porch and now a month later they are doing great.






we had to add a super last week.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Well done, Montyb! I'm going to go do one solo tonight as long as it isn't raining again. The weather we've had here is wet wet wet.

Looking back on it, I wish I'd have considered doing this in Mid March when it was in the 60s and the queens had just barely started laying in our TBHs (Langs had been brooding since January). But I got a few splits and a few new queens out of it, so not a total loss/waste.


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## Montyb (May 27, 2013)

Don't envy you doing alone. Really helped with wife doing the rubber banding. After the first one knew where to cut the comb so it was prob only 10 to 12 seconds for each one. And was really surprised how lack of interest they showed. Only got stung once - it crawled up my leg inside my Levi's and got stuck by my knee and got me. No big thing,


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Ours never so much as head butted us. A little smoke and some smoke wafting through the area seemed to keep them under control. The last two we cut over last weekend was on a cool morning that was supposed to get warm and sunny fast. Well apparently a front came in and we ended up doing it under pretty heavy clouds and 65* or so. They were still well behaved.

Having two people is great, we had three last weekend and man was that a slick operation! One guy shaking, me cutting, dad rubber banding. It helps that our top bar combs are pretty much perfect size to fit into a medium frame with virtually no brood damaged. We cut 10 brood combs into a medium then one more comb strapped into a deep to lure them up into the deep we place above. Worked well so far. Amazing how small the brood nest was in some of our TBHs compared to what are queens in Langs are running.

My thoughts behind finding the queen is that I have much less of a chance of accidentally having her drop off of a frame onto the ground when shaking. Plus I wanted to mark them, so she waited patiently in a cage while we completed the cut over and then held her in my hand while the bees checked her before free releasing her with some honey on her wings. They are always eager to clean off a honeyed queen.

Regarding larva... I think they might be a bit tougher than I had previously thought. When we cut those two hives over I was worried about it being too cool and possibly risking the broodnest of freshly laying queens. When we cut our combs off there is a little bit of the honey band left on top of the bars and I put them all into one of the nuc boxes we had cut out of and brought it home to crush and strain what honey we had. A full 36 hours or so after the cut out, I went out to the garage to pull these bars out of the nuc box (they were just piled into it) and I found a big fat larva that must have been on the edge of one of the combs we cut. It was loose in the pool of honey that had formed in the bottom of the nuc. It was moving and breathing just fine. I honestly wish I would have put it into a small jar or something just to see what would happen. Does anyone know what would happen if a larva tried to pupate outside of comb?


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## Montyb (May 27, 2013)

We cut ours out to standardize our 4 hives, plus I figured I can checkerboard a couple of frames without foundation in one of the Lang hives for comb honey. What's your reasons?


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

From tonight's cut out.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Monty, my reasons are the struggles I had with swarm prevention and wanting standard equipment. Also hives that are less maintenance. Having 12 foundationless colonies is too much dinking around. I am making switch to plastic foundation as well. 

Tonight's cut over went well. It is a 12 bar nuc and they had one bar mostly brood the rest was every cell packed with nectar. It was like a sponge... Every comb. I am planning on moving a production sized hive there to hopefully take advantage of whatever monster flow they are on. One comb tasted like bold mint so I'm assuming a good amount of basswood in the mix. I cut 8 of the combs and had to run back ti my remaining top bar to find four worker sized combs mostly empty. So I ran back out after cutting 4 more combs and dropped them into the bottom box to fill it out. Two open nectar combs rubber banded into the new deep witb plastic frames filling the additional space. 

Such gentle bees. Carnis are awesome. This queen had no room and had laid in a half dozen swarm cups so they weren't going to be around much longer. Will check in a few days to make sure i have quelled the swarm urge.


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## Rairdog (Jun 21, 2014)

So obviously you are more interested in less work and more production for your benefit while being rude too others that are more interested in raising bees. Take your posts to another category please and let those that want to raise bees and learn their behavior bee. I have seen you down all TBH keepers as we try to learn, share and ask questions. Buzz off.


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## Rairdog (Jun 21, 2014)

jwcarlson said:


> Monty, my reasons are the struggles I had with swarm prevention and wanting standard equipment. Also hives that are less maintenance. Having 12 foundationless colonies is too much dinking around. I am making switch to plastic foundation as well.


We are TBH keepers for a reason. Foundationless is what drives us. If they swarm and we don't catch them so be it. TBH keepers like to get into their hives and ask questions. They are interested in the bees and not concerned with making it easier for us..it's for them. Like I said...move on to another forum.


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## Montyb (May 27, 2013)

Nice job J W. It's just amazing how they just March themselves in. Carol and I watched them for about 20 min and they all went in. I agree with you about carni's my other three hives are Carni's but the cut out is Italians. One of our other hives is a long Lang, hived from a package in late April and has been struggling. They are in the process of supercedure.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Rairdog, I'll assume that your post was after a rough night. Please show me where I have "downed" ALL TBH keepers? The reality is that people switch hive types to and from TBHs. You think I didn't enjoy my TBHs? And I wasn't willing to put the work in to keep them alive? Please. When you work full time and have 12 foundationless colonies like I do let me know how much time you have to do other, more valuable beework than pinching comb and talking to them. If you read my larger post on bee forum abouy my evolution as a beekeeper you may have little bells go off and go "ohhhhhhh". It is not about less work, it is about more meaningful work. That has been my evolution, the tedium of constantly correcting new comb is great if you just want to shake a package into a hive every spring. 

Let me know how letting your "hot hive" swarm in your neighbors wall works out. 

I wish you the best of luck, Rairdog, even if you were rude to me. If I told you something you didn't want to hear in the top bar echo chamber I apologize for being constructive. One of the biggest issues with people with your mindset is that they latch on to any beekeeping idea that isn't conventional because they've become convinced that everything about beekeeping "that way" is evil.


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## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

Rairdog said:


> We are TBH keepers for a reason. Foundationless is what drives us. If they swarm and we don't catch them so be it. TBH keepers like to get into their hives and ask questions. They are interested in the bees and not concerned with making it easier for us..it's for them. Like I said...move on to another forum.


Lol....... find a tree to hug man. Nice job JW. 

Oh, by the way RD, I have a dozen langs without a shred of foundation.
G


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

biggraham610 said:


> Lol....... find a tree to hug man. Nice job JW.
> 
> Oh, by the way RD, I have a dozen langs without a shred of foundation.
> G


If I had a dozen colonies just like my first in a foundationless Lang, it woudln't be a problem to run that many. And truthfully with wife and two young kids, full time job, etc it's hard to justify driving all over pinching combs back. One or two in my back yard would be one thing, but the ones we have are scattered at the moment trying to hone in on which yards will be best flow-wise and likewise for the bees. After last night I have a pretty good idea where I want to get at least 1-2 more colonies soon.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Monty, the Italians I cut over last weekend were docile too, but they are such small colonies in these TBH nucs that they don't really have a chance to have much attitude, honestly. 

In my thread about my "evolution" here: http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...evolution-as-a-beekeeper-I-feel-kind-of-dirty

I talk about what I believe is part of the problem with my particular TBHs and that is the size of the combs. They are just too small. Even what I consider a "large" colony for my TBHs had only the broodnest to fill a medium + a frame or two of brood right now when their nests should be about as large as they get. I guess that was eye opening. It's like a colony in miniature, to be honest. Tough to keep them in the volume of hive that amounts to something like three mediums +/-. That's not on top bar hives, that's on me. 

There are plenty of people on here who have nice large combs in their top bar hives, and I think that would help greatly in securing your colony and giving them a place to expand during spring. The other issue, I believe, is that there is no UP expansion in a TBH (not talking long Langs which would be super-able, although I'm not sure how many people are doing that with LLs). Bees want to expand their brood nest in a circle or oval. It's tough not making them feel cramped if your combs are only about 7" tall like mine. Again, that's on me for comb size. But the inability to open space above the broodnest is TBH specific. With deep enough combs it might not be a big deal, but my best queen was maintaining a brood nest of about 12-13 deep frames + a couple of medium frames partially filled with brood before I finally I split them and 3.5 weeks later she's filled the deep box I split her in to and I've robbed about three frames of brood from her for other bee work. They get a second deep either tonight or tomorrow depending on if I move them to a new yard. 

I'd thought about progressing from TBHs to long Langs, but not building custom equipment is more appealing at the moment. I'd be curious to know what people are experiencing for brood nest size in long Langs compared to standard vertical Langs.


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## cgybees (Apr 20, 2015)

Good post.. ignore those who tried to make you feel bad for switching. Everyone has reasons for what they do.


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## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

I want to try a long lang at some point, just haven't gotten around to it yet. G


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Graham, I'd love to hear someone who keeps both LLangs and regular Langs comment on comparative broodnest size. 

cgybees, I'm not worried about anyone else's opinion on how I'm keeping my bees, honestly. It is of little concern to me.


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