# Wintering in TBH's



## Maine_Beekeeper (Mar 19, 2006)

Not well in the North. 

We have a local top bar hive retailer here in Maine. 
Apparently she brought 17 TBH into winter and none of them survived. 

I tried to winter one and they also didn't make it. 

From what I hear, of the 40 or so TBH I know about in Maine, 4 survived the winter of 2009-2010 (which was a very mild winter)

TBH are fun until your bees die. Then you feel a bit like a jerk. 
I am trying again with two this year. So far they're gangbusters but winter will be the real test.


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## Aram (May 9, 2006)

_"Apparently she brought 17 TBH into winter and none of them survived."_ Wow!!!
_"From what I hear, of the 40 or so TBH I know about in Maine, 4 survived the winter of 2009-2010"_ Wow! WOW!!!


Are the losses connected with the hive design or is this a coincidence? 
We do have cold winters and mine over-winter fine. 
There are a few things you can do to prep them: 
Watch the cluster going in the winter. You can rearrange the honey stores so they are all on the same side of the cluster. 
Top entrances for moisture ventilation.
Make the hives a little taller so they can move vertically and not have to move across comb, along the cold walls, in long cold spells. (I believed this for many years and build my hives accordingly until last winter when the bees showed me they don't care. I lost some taller KTBHs but of the two 9 5/8" tall, straight walled hives, both survived.)
I'm sure there are other suggestions. Check out MB's Website he keeps them in Nebraska. Dennis Murrell was keeping them in Wyoming, I believe. Plenty winter in those places!


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Why folks in cold climates keep trying to use TBH's is beyond me....clusters don't move sideways from frame to frame very well.

Bees like to go up and down......

In a TBH they get stuck in the cold, unable to move to the next bar and starve.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

I have a friend (in Connecticut) who tried to keep bees alive in tbh's but finally decided to go with Lang's...


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

JPK said:


> Bees like to go up and down......
> 
> In a TBH they get stuck in the cold, unable to move to the next bar and starve.


This is easily solved if the TBH uses the same size bars as a Lang. In the fall, simply take 10 bars out of the TBH and place them in a Lang hive body and set it on top of the TBH. Put a follower board in the TBH. Next spring, reverse this. I did this with my 20 frame condo hive. Works like a champ.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Why folks in cold climates keep trying to use TBH's is beyond me....clusters don't move sideways from frame to frame very well.

I don't try. I do. And the bees do just as well horizontally as they do living vertically.


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## 11x (May 14, 2009)

JPK said:


> .clusters don't move sideways from frame to frame very well.
> 
> Bees like to go up and down.......


 i wish you would have been here last winter to tell my bees this.. i lost a hive with 70lb of excess honey above them. thay moved to the side of the middle brood box and starved. had them inspected and the result was thay just didnt move up..
some people read to many books,, my bees cant read


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## DavesBees (Jun 2, 2009)

You know bees live just fine winter after winter in spaces between floors in old buildings. These combs are not more than 8 inches deep and lined up all nicely in a row, horizontally. How they do it, I don't know: I never spent the winter with them, but they do it. They can live in old gas tanks and none of the horrors that we worry about seem to matter to them one bit. I agree with Michael, and my bees built their hive the way they wanted it. If they can't find their food then they will starve. Ok, because if they can't find their own food how do I expect them to go outside the hive in the spring and find it. Just for the record, In this area bees didn't make it through last winter in Langs either. If the box is big enough and has enough stores for winter the bees should be fine. On the other hand if their first big warm winter day meal has high levels of systemic chemicals perhaps their tummy aches prevented them from returning to eat any more. I'll die before I eat any more of that; and so they do. Must have been the type of hive, don't you thing Joe. No Tom must be the cold weather. We I think they got lost and couldn't find the honey. By the way....for real; my at least 4 year old bee tree died last fall. Must have been the wrong size tree.


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## DavesBees (Jun 2, 2009)

11x,
You should not be wasting your time on the forum. You must use this time to teach the bees to read. It won't take all that long since they really only need to be able to read and follow arrows with food written on them. You know what take the longest.....painting those tiny flippin signs and fitting them in the hive in the proper places. This is a huge responsibility because once you teach them to read it's all on you buddy. One wrong turn and well you know the rest.......opcorn:


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

If it works for you then great, have at it.

You really don't need to look far for evidence that bees prefer to move up and down than side to side.....take a nuc, hive it and intentionally give it an extra box on top of your cluster.....which way are they going to go? Over to the next frame or up onto frames above them.....they will predictably go up.

Everyone I know that has TBH's in New England has extremely high mortality rates, much much higher than Langs and it makes sense why. Bees go in one direction in your TBH and end up at one end with no stores.....except for the stores at the opposite end of the hive many many bars away. When its cold a cluster can rarely move quickly enough accross multiple empty combs before starving.

Barry's idea is essentially stacking bars like a lang which reduces the problem dramatically.

If it works for you then keep doing it.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Yes, they need to be at one end at the begining so they don't leave half their stores behind them. Left to themselves they usually are, but if they are not, I intervene. It seems to me that what they have troulbe doing is changing direction. If they are moving sideways that's not a problem. But they don't back up and they don't change back to up or down after coming from that way. Which makes some sense, but also, in a ten frame Langstroth, leaves a lot of stores behind...


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Ok, given the higher mortality rate and the fact that like most bees they choose to make their brood nest in the middle and if they also are likely to starve without human intervention that forces them to one end of the box at the beginning of the colder weather (ie it requires even MORE management than langs), requires that you crush and strain instead of extracting....why would anyone that lives in cold climates choose to use TBH's?

If you want your bees to draw their own comb then give them frames that are designed to foundationless or take your wedge and nail it sideways and rub it with some bees wax.

I'm all for trying new things, particularly things that make life easier and increase chances of a colonies survival....but TBH's in cold climates don't accomplish any of the above......unless I'm missing something that is.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Ok, given the higher mortality rate and the fact that like most bees they choose to make their brood nest in the middle

Actually they usually choose to make it at one end...

> and if they also are likely to starve without human intervention that forces them to one end of the box at the beginning of the colder weather (ie it requires even MORE management than langs), requires that you crush and strain instead of extracting....why would anyone that lives in cold climates choose to use TBH's?

Well, I wouldn't recommend an extractor for anyone with only a few hives... langs or top bars. They don't requre any more intervention than langs. And what does cold climate have to do with any of those things?


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Michael Bush said:


> Actually they usually choose to make it at one end...


Mike, a couple posts before you stated that you intervene if they are not at one end of the hive.

Moving a cluster/brood space is a lot more intervention/management than is required in managing langs.



Michael Bush said:


> And what does cold climate have to do with any of those things?


A colony in Florida in the winter where temps are in the 40-60 degree range most of the time can move to where their stores are without much trouble......you don't find colonies in warmer climates starving inches or a frame away from stores.....they just move.

In the north where temps will sit below freezing and dip well below zero for good periods of time have a MUCH harder time moving and if a cluster gets too small and cannot move....they starve where the same cluster in warmer climes can move and will survive.

The point obviously is that theres a lot more room for error in warmer climates.....and TBH's make it more difficult for bees to get to stores.....lets say all things equal you winter with 2 deeps in a Lang and ~20 bars in a TBH. The distance between the two furthest frames in a lang is about half that of a TBH


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## Aram (May 9, 2006)

_"Ok, given the higher mortality rate..."_
*Not* a given. Other than the dismal survival rates I've seen at the beginning of this post, that is not my experience. If someone brought southern bee packages and did nothing but put them in top bar hives I'd expect as much as 50-60% die-off the first winter in my area. Someone starting with 17 TBHs and losing all of them... there's got to be something else wrong than the hive design. (Could be that coastal Maine is actually warmer and a lot more humid than inland US??? Then hives of any design would have different ventilation/ stores requirements.)
Here's a colony I removed from 6" depth space between 2X10" floor beams. They overwintered fine. Probably for a few years in a row as I saw signs of the previous owners having tried to seal them out.









_"... and the fact that like most bees they choose to make their brood nest in the middle..." _
This is something I'll have to pay more attention too. In my hives the queen pretty much shuts down while the bees still bring in stores, backfilling what used to bee brood nest. Cold nights, warm days. So I can't see much of a brood nest. I watch where they cluster and it's not (usually) in the middle. I only once moved a bar (to the far end of the cluster) mainly because it was loaded with pollen and I wanted the bees to have access to it in the early spring.


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## beenovice (Jun 19, 2007)

I have average temperatures as Michigan and have no problems with overwintering TBHs ( Bush design ). 

If you think about it...people overwinter in 2 deeps, some even in 1 ! ! ... so go and make TBH that is suitable for your climate. That's all. 

Anyway... if you have the comb height high enough bees will move up even in TBH  
I leave them to arrange their nest on their own for overwintering and they stay on one side taking food from the patch of honey on top of the comb  They kind of move up. If we look at the hive, they pretty much stay at one place and don't move much. 100% overwintering in climate with average temps as Michigan. 4 seasons with quite hard winters with weeks under -15 Celzius....


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## bigbearomaha (Sep 3, 2009)

The only given here, is that some folks don't like tbh's, which is fine. You don't have to. But with plenty of anecdotal evidence offered by folks like Mike Bush who aren't just talking about a guy they know, but their own first hand experience, I'll be more inclined to take their word for knowing what they are talking about than someone who knows a guy who knows a guy.

What is happening here however is spreading Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty about something that doesn't need to be. It doesn't affect non-users for beans what type of hives other people use, yet folks continually try to bully others with mis-information and biased opinion an what equipment they should use. 

Folks are certainly entitled to have their own opinions about equipment, but I'll prefer to listen to the opinions of people who actually know what they are talking about.

Big Bear


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Aram, what you're describing in the example of your cutout doesn't really translate to TBH for a couple of reasons.

1. A cutout, particularly one in the photo you provided is going to have temps moderated for them due to heat from the house.

2. The cutout in the photo would actually *ALMOST* be more similar to a TBH with the bars perpendicular to the direction they run in current designs.

This makes it MUCH easier on the bees because they can move back and forth on very long comb instead of having to move across many short/smaller "frames"

There have been more folks that just chimed in on the last couple of posts that HAVE had successes than I've heard in the last couple of year.

Maybe a poll of TBH users with success rates would help.

I frankly don't care what people use and if I thought that there were advantages to TBH's I would use them myseld, but I just don't see it and the majority of folks I know that that DO have TBHs have much much higher mortality rates.


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## beenovice (Jun 19, 2007)

JPK : we can agree that we don't agree  

It is not TBH that is at fault here. Certainly there might be some problems due to lack of information on actually beekeeping with TBHs if we compare it to information on Langs. 

The thing is that you have to do some research yourself and see what works for your (micro)climate. If bees in your winters overwinter in one deep + one medium then they will probably overwinter in TBHs ( Bush design ) also. It is really no brainer......at least for me. 
I am 100% successful in overwntering in TBHs in climate with average temperatures as in Michigan, USA. 

What is bugging me is that people who overwinter in one deep or deep+shallow or medium are telling me that my TBHs will overwinter poorly because bees will not move up. They kind of not realize that bees in my TBHs have more way up(or similar) than bees in their hives  
I guess they don't think before they talk or write hehe. They just think that because they use Langs and stack them upwards that they have comb with more height  ah well. I will leave you now to continue telling me how it is not possible or something. This thread reminds me of "you cannot keep bees without treatments" thingie...

I keep bees for fun and a little profit here and there. Just so we are clear on that. If I would go big ( 200+ hives ) I would settle on LR or some other "standards" that are standards around here.
Currently I keep bees in frame hives also ( LR and some other standards ) and see no real world difference in overwintering and overall colonies strenght. This is probably because I leave them alone, don't add or take frames, bars and take very little honey from them since I don't feed ( to lazy to feed them in August and September so they can overwinter doh ). Let them bee


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## Aram (May 9, 2006)

_"1. A cutout, particularly one in the photo you provided is going to have temps moderated for them due to heat from the house.
2. The cutout in the photo would actually *ALMOST* be more similar to a TBH with the bars perpendicular to the direction they run in current designs."_

I agree on both points. The picture just illustrates that the bees will move horizontally and do not need much overhead space to survive. 
The two lang sized (19" bar X 9 5/8" height) long hives that I over-wintered last year did great. Two out of two ain't bad, is it. (Some of my deeper bodied top bar hives didn't make it, though, so I'm not sure vertical movement is the problem.)


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

Aram said:


> _
> I agree on both points. The picture just illustrates that the bees will move horizontally and do not need much overhead space to survive. _


_

I think its important to make a distinction as I have done previously between moving up/down/sideways on comb (relatively easy for a cluster in cold) and moving BETWEEN comb/frames which is much more difficult for a cluster in the cold.

Think about the physics of a cluster, particularly a smaller one.that is working two sides of a single frame or even two frames. In order to move between comb they actually need to get OFF the comb they are on and go over/under/around the comb in order to get onto the other side of the destination frame/comb.

This is MUCH more difficult than simply going up to another frame (chimney) or moving along a single continuous comb as illustrated in the cutout.

Beenovice, thats an interesting comparison on the Lang equiv of a TBH.

I don't know anyone up in Northern NE that over winters on anything less than 2 deeps. I'm using 3 mediums on some and 2 deeps and a medium on most._


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>The point obviously is that theres a lot more room for error in warmer climates.....

Certainly.

>and TBH's make it more difficult for bees to get to stores.....lets say all things equal you winter with 2 deeps in a Lang and ~20 bars in a TBH. The distance between the two furthest frames in a lang is about half that of a TBH 

Your assumptions are not consistent with my observations. In my observation I lose more bees in double ten frame deep langs than I do in top bar hives. You may believe whatever you like, but what you believe is not consistent with my experiences. My horizontal hives, all in all winter as well if not better. Most years better. I could theorize why, but I don't know if I'm correct. But let's try this. A long hive they can stay at the top, where they prefer the whole winter and just move sideways consistently to the other end until there are no more stores or spring comes. In a ten frame lang the cluster is too small to fill the box so the outside frames get left behind and they get to the top and starve inches away from food. I see less stores left behind in the horizontal hives than the vertical hives.


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## raosmun (Sep 10, 2009)

From reading the 3 pages of posts on this. I have a few points/question to add. First of all I lost my TBH and 3 langs last winter, they simply starved (ran out of stores). Last winter in NW Oh was misserable and long that followed a zreo fall flow. 
If bees are in a lang. then there is only one way to go, same for a TBH or whatever they deside to make there home in, up-down-sideway or at an angle. I do agree that they move in one direction not going back untill the whole cycle starts over in the spring. 
One question not asked/mentioned on the 17 TBH's lost is did they have an end entrance? If the 17 had the entrance in the middle, then mostlikely the brood nest would have been in the middle and they would have moved one way from there to feed, giving them only half of there stores.
Just my 2 cents worth.


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## beez2010 (Dec 9, 2009)

I have also found that the horizontal nests that I have removed have all had the combs built lengthwise in the space, or at least diagonally, never perpendicular to the length like a TBH.

One of the things that I find most interesting about this discussion is the extremely low expectations that many here have for over-wintering. 50-60% die-off would be expected? This is acceptable?

Those levels seem completely insane to me. I never experienced die-offs anywhere near half of new colonies even when I used Langs (my langs had quilts on them). I guess if you think that you should lose so many bee colonies during the winter, then it is easy to think TBHs work well in cold climates. Maybe it's time to try something new so that you'll have something to compare the TBHs to other than just a Lang which is also not a very good way to overwinter bees.

Michael makes a very good point....without saying it I actually think he suggested that bees would pass-up the least amount of stores in a vertical, yet SQUARE hive that was small enough for the cluter to fill....Hmmmmmm.

Maybe an octagonal, vertical hive that fits a cluster perfectly would work even better...I and many of my customers are about to find out.

Chris Harvey--Teakwood Organics

www.thewarrestore.com


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## Aram (May 9, 2006)

Chris,
The whole sentence was: _"If someone brought southern bee packages and did nothing but put them in top bar hives I'd expect as much as 50-60% die-off the first winter in my area."_ 
That implied that: 
-the bees were not acclimatized (i.e. southern stock in northern climate), 
-possibly carrying SHB (happened to me last year), 
-non hygenic because were not bread for that so they are relying on chem treatments for mite control and now they are getting none ( I see that all your hives have screened bottoms "to monitor and combat varroa mites), 
-inexperienced beekeeper (hands off approach, doing nothing but putting them in the box and leaving them alone.) 
That's a lot of ifs. Top Bar Hives do require some attention and so do Langs. I know that part of your point is that Warre hives do not. I am interested in those too, maybe next year. In the meantime let us know how it works for your customers.
I have found (true, just one) case in which the bees built perpendicular to the length of the space. It was between 16" on center floor joists. Don't know if they would have made it through the winter but I assume the bees knew what they were doing.


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## Tomas (Jun 10, 2005)

Last year and year before while working in Wisconsin, I started some top bar hives with my brother. We had about a 60 percent survival rate with them. Of those that did not survive, some had other issues like a small population or a doubtful queen. There was also a bad fall goldenrod flow which didn´t help them any to get ready for and get through winter. I actually didn´t expect all of them to survive.

This was the first time that I had tried to over winter a hive. All my other beekeeping experience has been in Honduras (just about 20 years now) where obviously it isn´t necessary. I thought about it, researched it and talked a good bit with the commercial beekeeper with whom I was working. 

I decided to bundle them in groups of four. Understanding that bees usually do seem to prefer to move up rather than sideways, I was thinking that the hives in a group would maybe help give one another a bit more warmth and keep the cluster a bit more loose so they could move sideways and find more honey reserves.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/Bees in Wisconsin/WinterizinghivesOct200801.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/Bees in Wisconsin/WinterizinghivesOct200802.jpg

I don´t have legs attached to the hive, which made stacking them possible. We bought some big sheets of white Styrofoam which we put around the the top, bottom and sides. Then everything was covered with a big piece of plastic left over from an ag bag for silage. We made sure they would get enough ventilation and kept a dead air space right in the middle of the four. We also made sure all the winter stores were to one side of the brood nest (the stores were moved, not the brood nest).

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/Bees in Wisconsin/WinterizinghivesOct200803.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/Bees in Wisconsin/WinterizinghivesOct200804.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/Bees in Wisconsin/WinterizinghivesOct200805.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/Bees in Wisconsin/WinterizinghivesOct200806.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/Bees in Wisconsin/Winterizedhives200901.jpg

Spring unwrapping:

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/... in Wisconsin/unwrappinghivesspring200901.jpg
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/... in Wisconsin/unwrappinghivesspring200902.jpg


It may not be the most perfect method (or maybe not even necessary) but the initial results were promising in my opinion. But whatever method is used (or whatever type of hive is used), I think the most important thing is to have your hive strong, mite free, disease free and with enough stores when going into winter. And maybe the initial source of your bees should also be taken into consideration since many people have commented elsewhere on this forum about the less than stellar performance by some package bees and their queens. (These bees initially started from packages and nucs made in Wisconsin with bees returning from almond pollination and with queens from very reputable queen breeders). 

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Tom


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

The first year I had my condo hive (20 frame Lang), the bees ended up dying of starvation all bunched up at one end of the hive with plenty of stores at the other end. From then on, I would always put follower boards in the 5 and 15 frame position early fall and put the frames out side of the boards in another brood chamber above. Never had a problem after that. At the very least, a TBH would require one to make sure the brood is at one end of the hive entering into a winter like we have.


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