# question on honey production vs langstroth



## praxis178

Yes I found two pretty quickly: http://docsdrive.com/pdfs/medwelljournals/pjssci/2008/310-315.pdf is from a study in Nigeria and http://www.bhutanstudies.org.bt/pubFiles/18-Rethinking.pdf is from a Kenyan study (focusing on comparing Langs with KTBH).

Cheers, Thomas.


----------



## psfred

Read critically when researching hive types, particularly top bar hives. The "kenya" top bar hive was popularized by aid workers in Africa looking for ways to enable local people with no money or significant machinery to keep bees and generate food and income. Scrap lumber (or in fact, reeds, straw, brush, etc) can be used with simple hand tools to make hives that cost little or no money and enable adequate handling of bees.

Top bar hives have been around since the early Greeks at least, going on 3000 years now, but that is NOT to say they are a better option for beekeeping. Very early civilizations didn't have power tools, and the amount of work required to make wooden hives and frames made them unobtainable for beekeepers. Little enough evidence of significant amounts of furniture of that level exists, let alone farm equipment.

Top bar hives, as my buddy who got all excited about them found out, can be a real pain. Crush and strain is the only significant way to remove honey, the combs are fragile even when hardened with use, and it's much more difficult to re-arrange the hive since you can only go sideways. They can also work well, but for real production, you are going to need to extract -- all that comb that gets turned into wax cakes every time you crush and strain gets re-used in Langstroth hives. Huge increase in honey right there, probably a couple shallow frames per box every time.

There are many other systems in use around the world for keeping bees, but all the successful ones use full frames of some sort. Only a Langstroth type system with separate stackable boxes will allow the beekeeper to keep piling on the supers as long as the bees want to fill them, all the rest require removing honey on a regular basis if you want a big crop. 

I see the separate boxes as the most advantageous part of the system -- need more room? Add a box of frames. Want to feed, just put a hivetop feeder on and the bees have instant access to gallons of syrup. Hard to do on a top bar hive, since it's not really a top bar hive once you start adding things over the bars....

You can successfully keep bees in top bar hives. Bees are quite adaptable. However, as many people will tell you, for a large number of hives there is a strong tendency to use Langstroths. No one has come up with a significantly better design after more than 100 years, I suspect, other than dimensions, there won't be.

Peter


----------



## Michael Bush

It takes different management for Top Bar Hives than Langstroth hives. If both were managed optimally for the Top Bar Hive, then the Top Bar Hive would make more honey...

My choice of a top bar vs langstront would be on how you need to be able to manage it. If you are building your own top bar hive, then you have little invested in the equipment. Especially if you can make it from free scrap lumber. Moses Quimby always insisted that you could not be very productive in making honey if you spend all your money on equipment. He was one of the most successful honey producers in the US and he was only using box hives up until the laws forced him into inventing his own movable comb hive (a simplifed leaf hive with no hinges). The point is if you are keeping your costs down your profits go up. If your hives cost nothing, you make more money. And that is the point of making more honey isn't it? 

Personally I have a few top bar hives in my backyard. They are easy to get to and check on. I have none in my outyards because they require more frequent checking. My outyards, and most of my home yard are eight frame medium Langstroths because they require less frequent manipulations. In the outyards I can pile on the supers at the start of the flow and not come back until fall. I can't do that with top bar hives and if I don't check them until fall they will have swarmed three times and not made much honey.


----------



## nada

have you measured honey production on your langs vs tbh?


----------



## Michael Bush

>have you measured honey production on your langs vs tbh? 

No. I really think it's irrelevant. What is relevant is how much money and time I invest to get how much honey... but I do find Langstroths better for outyards in that regard as I don't have to make frequent trips. Again, if they were in my backyard, and I built them from scrap lumber, I think the top bar hives might be better if I had the time to spend to build them and check them more often. It's not how much honey you get per hive, it's how much honey you get for your money and labor that matters and that will depend a lot on how far away your hives are, how handy you are with woodworking, how much free lumber you can get etc.


----------



## jdmidwest

How do you keep brood out of the honey comb areas?


----------



## Michael Bush

I use no excluder in any of my Langstroth hives. It works the same. The bees are not looking to put brood scattered everywhere. What is a "honey comb area" other than the place the bees put the honey?


----------



## Ramona

Michael Bush) It's not how much honey you get per hive said:


> And how much money you get for your honey!
> 
> Ramona


----------



## JD's Bees

The cost of the equipment or the price I sell my honey for does not determine my hive production but will affect my profit. 
So how much production can nada expect from a TBH compared to a Langstroth hive. Those who run TBH's should have some idea what they typically harvest in a year.


----------



## Adam Foster Collins

It seems like a simple question to answer, but it isn't. To me, the top bar hive is too new to western beekeeping to have a lot of answers for what it's full potential is.

As Mike Bush says, they are cheaper to build, but they are more expensive in terms of time to manage.

Most people I have seen using tbh's (including myself - I have 5 of them) are not using them with a focus on maximum production. I have removed as much as 25 or 30lbs out of mine, but have never come close to taking the majority of what they have. This year, I didn't take anything from them.

After three seasons running them, I would say that if you want to maximize production, you need to start removing honey early enough in the season that they are still building comb. It's the same as with a langstroth, except that you can't just add space - you have to remove stores to make room, and you have to do so when they're still going to use the resources to make more comb - and not just plug everything up and swarm.

If I were pushing for maximum yield, I would likely take a comb or two of honey at a time beginning in July and probably take it as close to where the brood nest begins as possible, so there is a lot of bee density and they're most likely to quickly rebuild comb there. I might do that two to four times beginning in July and going until September, when I would estimate their stores for winter and perhaps take any surplus then. It would be best if you could just store the removed combs and do all the crushing and straining at one time - and would allow you to add some of it back to weak hives if you wanted.

In my own world, I would maintain a big chest freezer for storage during the season. But that would only work for a handful of hives.

This is only an estimation based on a few years of working them - The fact is, there haven't been enough people (who contribute to these forums) trying to push the production limits of the tbh to really have it figured.

Bottom line for me is that in order to answer the question of how the two hive types compare, the two have to be run and managed for the same reasons, by equally competent beekeepers. And generally they're not.

Most people who want to make a lot of honey will put their time and energy into langstroths. People in developing regions who are using tbh's for production generally don't have the means that the western world has to through at really push them - and as the paper suggests, most of the people using them there are beginners, or people with less than 5 years experience.

I think that holds true here as well.

How's Les Crowder doing with them? What has he found?

Adam


----------



## Maddox65804

I don't see where Michael said they are cheaper to build. He said a TBH can be made from scrap lumber. So can a Langstroth/vertical hive. I make both. The costs and time are almost the same for both. So the cost of one design vs. the other is really equal. And, therefore not really a decision making factor. (I'm not speaking for Michael! this is my experience only).


----------



## bluegrass

I think it comes down to two things: #1. the bees; a lousy producer is a lousy producer no matter what type of hive they are in. #2 location. A TBH on 100 acres of blooming basswood will produce far more honey than a Lang on 100 acres of sand dunes. 

I rate both these things equally. A good bee will not produce much in a lousy location, and a poor bee will not produce much in the best location.


----------



## jbeshearse

If the literature is correct, the bees can construct enough comb out of 1 pound of wax to store 25 lbs of honey. This is based on African beekeepers who maximixe for wax (tbh style). it is also commonly held that bees consume 8 pounds of honey for every pound of wax they produce. That means that any crush and strain operation will lose 8 pounds of honey for every 25 they store.

So a lang that produces 100 lbs of surplus would only produce 68 pounds of surplus in a TBH. Just round it out, a crush and strain operation can only produce about 2/3rd as much surplus honey a system that re-uses drawn comb.

Ask almost any keeper (almost, because we are beekeepers and can never reach agreement) and they will say "Drawn comb is like gold". There is a reason for this saying.


----------



## Adam Foster Collins

Maddox65804 said:


> ..The costs and time are almost the same for both...


How do you manage that? 

A tbh is a much simpler design with far fewer parts. How do you find the two the same in cost and time? Are you building frames?

How can building a typical tbh with 30 (or so) bars - 40 or 50 pieces of wood, and no frame assembly be the same as a typical lang with two deeps and a medium or 5 mediums, requiring anywhere between from 160 to 250 (or so) pieces of wood and all that assembly - be "the same"?

Man, if you can tell me a way to make langstroth gear in the same time and material cost as a top bar hive, I'm all for it.

Adam


----------



## Michael Bush

>I don't see where Michael said they are cheaper to build. He said a TBH can be made from scrap lumber. So can a Langstroth/vertical hive. I make both. 

It's easier to find the right size for Langstroth (as the pieces tend to be smaller) but requrires more skill than most people have in woodworking. So most buy their Langstroth equipment.

As far as combs, it's not the honey cost of secreting the wax to build the comb, it's the TIME lost during a flow when there is no where to store the nectar. Drawn comb will make a lot more honey expecially in a short heavy flow, than when they have to draw the comb. This is probably the biggest loss in production in a typical top bar hive. But you can extract a top bar comb if it's older and you can figure out how to fit it in your particular extractor. It is not hard to do them in a tangential and even a radial could work.


----------



## shannonswyatt

I've seen a video of someone extracting from a top bar on YouTube. It was a two frame extractor, but there is no reason it wouldn't work on larger extractors. 

I think that Top Bars are good for a hobby, but for production you would need langs. For me the fun is "messing with the bees" and having a few hives in the back yard were I can spend a few minutes every few days is easy. Its also fun for me to make the hives, which I can do with top bars, but I don't have the equipment to make langs. If the hives were an hour a way it would be a bit of a problem.


----------



## Maddox65804

Adam Foster Collins said:


> How do you manage that?
> 
> A tbh is a much simpler design with far fewer parts. How do you find the two the same in cost and time? Are you building frames?
> 
> Man, if you can tell me a way to make langstroth gear in the same time and material cost as a top bar hive, I'm all for it.
> 
> Adam


Both a Lang and a TBH are essentially boxes. So they are essentially the same - one stands vertical and one is horizontal. A TBH with the same amount of space inside actually takes slightly more wood to construct than a Lang. Both have lids but a TBH has a larger lid - so more material. A Lang has a bottom board. 

I use simple designs for all of the parts. I find that as the designs get more complicated, the differences are greater between the different hive styles.

I have both vertical hives (Lang or Warre designs) and horizontal hives (Top bar or with Frames). So I am not advocating one design over another. 

For me, once I have the design templates for a hive created, putting the wood together and building the hive is pretty much the same no matter what type of hive I'm building. I feel like I'm just building different shaped boxes. I still have to pay attention to measurements and joints and all those details, no matter what style of hive I am making.

The only thing I don't make is frames. They are just way too cheap to buy compared to the time I would have to spend to make them. Topbars are easier to make, of course.


----------



## Bush_84

In my two years of experience, my first year Lang gave me more honey than my wintered TBHs. My two TBHs didn't seem to want to move past the two foot mark in the hive and would swarm. Last year I bought a nuc and put it in a Lang and got some honey off of it in it's first year. That sold me. Both of my TBHs have died this winter and I will not repopulate them. I will put their comb into a Lang and put the comb to use. I may leave a comb or two in the TBHs and use as a swarm trap. Who knows maybe I will get lucky!


----------



## shannonswyatt

Dan, what is the dimensions of your top bar hives. Width of the bars, depth and width at the bottom. Just curious.


----------



## jbeshearse

Michael Bush said:


> >
> As far as combs, it's not the honey cost of secreting the wax to build the comb, it's the TIME lost during a flow when there is no where to store the nectar. Drawn comb will make a lot more honey expecially in a short heavy flow, than when they have to draw the comb. This is probably the biggest loss in production in a typical top bar hive. But you can extract a top bar comb if it's older and you can figure out how to fit it in your particular extractor. It is not hard to do them in a tangential and even a radial could work.



Michael, I am going to respectfully disagree to a point. A lot of the following is for the wider audience as I realize you are intimately knowledgeable on these items, more so that myself, so correct where necessary. 

It is lost time and honey to wax production and lost foraging due to lack of storage. 

Honey consumed while secreting wax and building comb:

The lost time does equate to lost honey and not just lost foraging opportunity during flow. From literature, a colony of about 50,000 bees can secrete about ½ pound of wax per day. That equates to about 3 medium frames per day of wax. The bees that are secreting are doing just that and only that. The carbohydrates these bees burn during this period comes from consumed honey. This is where the 8 pounds per pound of wax is lost. Four pounds a day for consumption during comb building. It is my understanding that the hormone level in bees rise when their honey stomachs are full and this initiates wax secretion. Also foragers and just emerged bees are not the bees secreting wax. It is primarily the bees that are 2 or three weeks old.

Honey lost due to inadequate storage:

Three medium frames of wax hold about 12 pounds of ripened honey. Nectar weighs less. Most plant nectar is 40 to 50% sugar with the balance moisture with a few percentage points of other inclusions (these give different honeys different tastes). Therefore nectar requires greater storage volume. If you figure that nectar is 40% sugar/60 % and is dried down to 18% water(moisture content) then nectar conversion to honey changes the ratios from 40/60 to 82/18 sugar to water. 1 pound of nectar has 9 ounces of water in it and 7 ounces of sugar. 1 pound of honey (18%) has about 2.8 ounces of water remaining in it. So for every pound of ripened honey stored the bees collected 2 ½ pounds of nectar (more or less). So during a heavy flow when honey cannot be dried fast enough additional comb is needed to accommodate the wet nectar. About twice as much as for ripened honey. This allows for some ripening (moisture reduction) to occur during glow. This means that the bees in an average size colony (50,000) can generate enough comb per day to accommodate about 12 pounds of ripened nectar which should eventually yield about 5 pounds of honey. Using these numbers, if there is not comb available for storage, then the bees are limited to about 35 lbs of “surplus” honey per week production during a otherwise boundless nectar flow. These numbers are ballpark as there are few if any absolutes in beekeeping. 

So as you say, there is certainly lost foraging due to no storage space during a heavy flow if there is not drawn comb available for use. I would be interested to know what actual field weight gains are from similarly populated Langstroth with drawn comb and a Top bar with no spare honey comb sitting side by side are during a short intense flow. 

Also unconsidered above is flow timing and comb building:

The bees that produce the wax are generally 2 and 3 weeks old. If the flow is early, before the hive has a maximum supply of wax building bees, then they will not be able to produce enough wax to store the honey coming in. This results in additional loss of surplus due to not having drawn comb.



Hive configuration losses:

It has been mentioned that top entrances can increase honey production. This could be in part due to quick and close access of the storage areas to the house bees. Less distance the bees have to travel to store equates to more foraging time. More foraging time equates to more nectar. In a Langstroth hive with the standard bottom entrance, the bees can move from the bottom of the hive directly along many paths to the top of the hive. On a TBH they have to transit the entire brood next before reaching the storage area. This equates to lost foraging due to the foragers having to “wait” for the house bees for a longer period. I imagine that a TBH with a slot entrance on the side that can be adjusted as to the entrance position could be utilized to give the foragers and house bees quicker access to the storage areas. This may also reduce the swarm instinct by decreasing traffic through the brood areas.

All the above is academic to actual field experience. And mileage may vary. From my experience with my TBH and langs, the langs far out produce the TBH. My TBH produced about 20 pounds of surplus the first year. Second year about 10. I then added some lang supers to it and they filled up 2 supers (75# honey). My langs have all averaged 100# per year or better. I will have to qualify that a bit as the TBH was completely treatment free and yielded 2 splits and then swarmed in its second year. It doed out due to mites and SHB this past fall and I was glad to see it gone.

If you are not concerned about honey production and do not extract and are prepared for the extra management a TBH entails then it should be cheaper to get started with. Mine was more frustration than it was worth


----------



## Bush_84

shannonswyatt said:


> Dan, what is the dimensions of your top bar hives. Width of the bars, depth and width at the bottom. Just curious.


Pretty similar to the chandler tbh, but a bit bigger on the bottom. The top bars are he same length however. I don't have the exact dimensions on hand, but that should give you an idea.

I remember that the guy I bought bees from scoffed at me saying that in his experience bees don't move horizontally as well as they do vertically, turns out he was right (in my experience). I also had other issues with the design namely lack of ability to feed easily, provide protein supplement, and inability to move. It's just not versatile. For all those homeopaths out there, you are better off with a warre. If size concerns you then make it larger. Nothing says you have to follow the exact dimensions. 

Either way I am doing better with my warre and langs.


----------



## Adam Foster Collins

Maddox65804 said:


> ...The only thing I don't make is frames. They are just way too cheap to buy compared to the time I would have to spend to make them...


Ah, there you have it. If you take away the woodworking required to create the frames, then sure - the two are comparable in terms of time and materials to make - but you can't just skip that big part - you're having to spend a dollar or so per frame in additional time to assemble them, or you're having to spend the time and effort to make them from scratch.

So the two are not comparable. The lang is significantly more complicated and expensive because of the frames.

You can whack out a complete and functional tbh with reclaimed material and basic tools pretty easily. Not so with a lang. The frames add too much complexity to do that.

Adam


----------



## jbeshearse

Adam Foster Collins said:


> So the two are not comparable. The lang is significantly more complicated and expensive because of the frames.
> 
> You can whack out a complete and funtional tbh with reclaimed material and basic tools pretty easily. Not so with a lang. The frames add too much complexity to do that.
> 
> Adam


I agree with Adam. You can make a TBH from reclaimed wood easily, but not a lang. But if you are using new wood then....

I can build a TBH with volume equal to three medium lang bodies for about $50.00 from new wood from Home Depot. Medium lang bodies are no cheaper to build from scratch than to purchase pre-cut (at hobby quantities). I figure a lang body with frames is about $15.00 each (foundationless) so the boxes and frames are $45. The bottom and top add about another $5.00 or so. So the cost is about the same. Assembly of the langs will take longer (3 boxes to assemble and paint, 30 frames, a top and a bottom). If you use foundation in the langs add another $22.00 or so to the cost.


----------



## Michael Bush

>Honey consumed while secreting wax and building comb:

In my experience they will make more honey on foundationless frames than they will on frames of foundation. If the only issue was the cost of the wax, this would not be so. But the issue is that they need somewhere to put the nectar and since they build the foundationless faster they have somewhere to store it sooner.


----------



## justsomeguy

Since much of the advantage to the TBH is horizontal frames, as well as natural comb formation, couldn't a person build a TBH to accommodate lang frames, and let the bee's draw natural comb on those? Then you could extract and reuse the comb. This would seem to provide the best of both worlds.


----------



## shannonswyatt

Yes, this would be a long hive. I think it has been described by someone as having all of the disadvantages of a Lang and the disadvantages of a TBH all in one! <grin> They are heavy so you can't move them easily, you have to use frames so there is no cost savings of no frames and I've not heard of anyone with great success with them. But I have seen long hives (photos anyway) with supers on them, and I have seen them with dividers were they are basically like a bunch of nucs built together. I think they have their place, but honey production with a long will most likely be like a top bar, unless it is super-ed. It's all about your personal goals.


----------



## psfred

If you are going to use frames, there is no point in using anything but standard Langstroth equipment unless you get a real kick out of making stuff. A set of frames is pretty cheap, all things considered, as you will be using them for decades in most cases, same deal for boxes.

If you stick with standard sized Langstroth equipment with Hoffman frames, you can sell extra bees, buy extraction equipment that your stuff fits, and so froth.

Top bar hives were revived by the Peace Corps for use in Africa where people had no money, no sawmills, and few tools. They are NOT an inherently better way to keep bees, just an improvement over killing feral hives when you cannot obtain equpiment other than scrap lumber or raising bees in skeps or gums (illegal in the US, for good reason). There are no other advantages so far as I can see, since all natural comb (no foundation) is just as easy in a Lang as it is in a top bar hive. Managing a Lang is much easier than a top bar, and extracting honey with re-using comb isn't practical without frames. Destroying honey comb every year greatly decreases your honey production, by the way. I would say, typically, the equivalent of two shallow frames per box, so you need to consider that, too.

You can, of course, suit yourself, but all the people I know around here who got excited about top bar hives are switching to Langs.

Peter


----------



## Maddox65804

Adam Foster Collins said:


> So the two are not comparable. The lang is significantly more complicated and expensive because of the frames.
> 
> You can whack out a complete and functional tbh with reclaimed material and basic tools pretty easily. Not so with a lang. The frames add too much complexity to do that.
> 
> Adam



I respectfully disagree Adam. I build and use both types of hives. It is just as easy to build a Lang or a TBH with reclaimed material in my experience. As I said before, they are both boxes - one is horizontal, the other is vertical. If I "whack" one out, it takes less time than if I build one well - not matter which style I'm constructing. If I build them well, they both have joints and inside dimensions and other design factors that all need to be considered so all the parts fit and work well together.

Both types of hive (horizontal or vertical), can be run with topbars or frames. Frames are really simple to build and use (and easier on the bees). I don't see the monster of "complexity" in frames. I can put together 100 frames in about the same time that I can mill out 100 top bars. Both frames and topbars need some type of starter strip to work well. (Yes, I know a starter strip is not necessary, but they work better with one)

From my experience there is not much difference in the equipment, if they are built to the same quality standards. I suppose I could build an overly complicated TBH and then compare it to a simply designed Lang if I wanted......

There are differences in the management strategies.


----------



## Maddox65804

I think it is important to remember that African bees (Apis Scutellata) behave differently than European bees (Apis Mellifera). Mostly in the fact that Scutellata is a migratory species. Mellifera is not. So, some of these comparasions between our management of bees or choices of equipment are probably not very apt.


----------



## Michael Bush

>couldn't a person build a TBH to accommodate lang frames, and let the bee's draw natural comb on those?

I have four or five.

> Then you could extract and reuse the comb. This would seem to provide the best of both worlds. 

You can save lifting boxes because it's horizontal. You can have natural comb if you use foundationless frames or just top bars. But if you mean having frames then you still have to build frames and that was always the tricky part of making a Langstroth hive and the thing that top bar hives were designed to avoid.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm#ttbh


----------



## Adam Foster Collins

Maddox65804 said:


> I respectfully disagree Adam. I build and use both types of hives. It is just as easy to build a Lang or a TBH with reclaimed material in my experience... Frames are really simple to build and use (and easier on the bees). I don't see the monster of "complexity" in frames. I can put together 100 frames in about the same time that I can mill out 100 top bars. Both frames and topbars need some type of starter strip to work well...


You seem to be making comparisons using pre-machined lang frames, where you're assembling those on the one hand, and then talking about making top bars from scratch on the other. Two different animals.

Adam


----------



## Maddox65804

Top bars and frames are both components of a beehive. Both take resources to acquire or build. I can either spend time/energy or, a money. Sometimes I spend my time and energy - sometimes it is more efficient to spend a little money. 

For me, topbars and frames are about the same cost in the long run. I can mill out 100 top bars or I can spend $70 dollars to buy 100 frames and assemble them. It is quick and simple to put them together (unless you use nails and a hammer and follow the outdated directions they give to newbees). 

They could be called "two different animals" but they are both being used in the same process, so comparing them against each other is very apt. If I have two different animals to do the same job, and both do it equally well with a few minor differences, then choosing one over another is mostly a matter of preference. Both are good. Just because I might prefer one over another does not mean the second one is bad. I like to use both.


----------



## gmcharlie

2 questions I see to weigh in on... I use TBH for comb. I sell a lot of honey with comb chunks and TB are great for that. TO keep brood from the comp is easy for me. I use 2 top bar widths 1 3/8 for the brood area, and 1 1/4 for honey so far for the last 3 years its worked flawless..... I don't think TBH generate as much honey per hive. and I think thats do to the horizontal vs vertical positioning. I think bees prefer vertical. A warre have might answer that but I have not tried that as the main point of TBH was a cheap way for beginners to get rolling.


----------



## BeeCurious

Swienty once sold an extractor for tbh frames, but they don't advertise it anymore.


----------



## psfred

I don't know about your bees, but putting frames that are not glued and nailed into my brother's hives is asking from trouble. The amount of propolis those girls put on things is astonishing, and un-nailed frames won't live long.

The nails do more than hold the wood together to let the glue set, they provide significant shear strength, much more than the wood. A nail through the side bar into the top bar is the difference between a splintered off top bar and a whole frame when the bees have made a mess, as they will sooner or later. 

Make a simple assembly jig, and you can put together 20 frames in half an hour or so, all nearly perfect.

Always always CHECK the frames for square and flat, and correct them before the glue sets.....

It doesn't take an huge amount of time to make frame parts once you get set up properly to do so and if you manufacture a large number of parts per operation. May not save any money if you consider time, but scrap materials work just fine. Lots of 24" 2x4, 2x6, and 2x8 pine at construction sites, lots of cut-offs at lumber yards (so a box costs 29 cents times four plus the effort of cutting down and rabbeting or cutting box joints). 

For a commercial operation, hard to justify making boxes and frames unless you have lots of time on your hands in the winter, but for a hobbyist with a table saw, not a significant investment in time.

Peter


----------



## Joel

I'm somewhat ignorant about top bar hives as the people I speak to about them seem less interested in honey production but in bee husbandry for the most part. I'm making the assumption the frames of surplus honey are stored to the outside of the brood nest as frames (top bar beekeepers are not adding top bar honey supers above?) as the flow crowds out brood. Then you have combs full of honey with no side or bottom support which you have to pull, transfer into another box and transport to an extracting location. Just that aspect of pulling and transferring frames in a yard seems time consuming and what keeps them from collapsing under the weight of say 5 or 6 lbs lbs of honey? Am I understanding these top bar frames are then being put in a radial extractor and spun to extract? I can't imagine the onces I have seen full of honey would last through the 1st minute on the lowest setting on my 20/40 Maxant. Am I also understanding people here are extracting them in radial (or tangetial) extractors successfully? Are these hives all started with packages, are you top bar guys using swarms or is there some method of transferring a nuc into them that does not entail major manipulations? We get calls about nucs for top bar hives and I also wonder if anyone is out there making top bar nucs because I'd love to have somewhere to refer people.


----------



## shannonswyatt

Joel, a top bar generally isn't supered, but there are folks that do super them. Really, if you want to use supers it makes sense to stick with Langs. Most folks running TBH's are not running a lot of them, so harvesting them is normally done a bar at a time on a hive. Most folks take the bars, cut of the comb and put the bar back in the hive, of put it someplace to let the bees clean it up and then put the bar back in the hive. Production on the TBH's isn't like a Lang, and extraction usually isn't something you would do with top bars. I have read the some folks do use extractors, but you are right, you would have to be careful to not totally destroy the comb. Mostly you would get comb honey or crush and strain. Again, if you want production stick with Langs.

I would guess that most hives are started via packages, followed by swarms. Some people do a chop and crop from a Lang hive, but this isn't for the faint of heart. Even people that have done it successfully don't recommend it. Once you have a hive or two you can do splits. I personally have put together TBH swarm traps, and I hope to get some caught this spring. But I'm hedging my bets and do have some Robo style (lang) swarm traps as well. 

Not too many folks sell top bar nucs. I believe that Sam Comfort at Anarchy Apiaries used to, but I saw a video not that long ago of him making packages. The impression I got was that he would rather sell packages than nucs. The problem with TBH's and nucs is there is no standard which makes it difficult for someone to sell nucs. Some are considerably shallower than others, some are much wider.

There are a few selling nucs, but I haven't been keeping up with the folks that are selling them. 

I think there are a lot of folks that start with TBHs, but eventually go to Langs if they want production. There are some folks like Wyatt Mangum that use TBH's for commercial pollination, but he is in the hundreds of hives, not thousands like the bigger guys. They require more maintenance when the hive is being established, otherwise you can end up with a cross combed mess.


----------

