# Kenyan vs. Tanzanian question



## Scot Mc Pherson (Oct 12, 2001)

Enough brood comb is that which makes enough bees to bring in a surplus....funny thing is, the bees know what's best if you let them do their thing.


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## Haggis (May 23, 2006)

Aye, they know, but I would like to have some idea as well. I should hate to think that my hives were built too small for the task at hand.

It being only the first of July, my bees have not put up any honey, other than the sugar syrup I feed them, and it stored around the brood. One hopes they don't run out of space before the need room to store honey.


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## Tomas (Jun 10, 2005)

One thing you might want to do is get a hold of some local beekeepers who have experience managing hives in your area. They should know more than anyone how the bees work up in Northern Minnesota (hopefully one will post something here). See what kind of space their hives are normally filling with just brood. Use that as a benchmark in planning the next TBHs you are going to build. Figure out how that space would transfer to your top bars and comb area and then add, I would say, at least 12 to 15 more topbars for honey storage (unless you're going to super for the honey).

I'm dealing with africanized bees down here but I would need at least 30 to 35 top bars of that size, if not more, inorder to feel comfortable that they'll have enough room to work. I normally get at least 20 frames of brood during the honey flows (my boxes are the sloped-sided Kenyan TBHs). 20 frames for everything just doesn't seem like that much space.

I tend to think it is better to have too much space than too little. You can always use a follower board and seal off part of the hive if necessary.

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Tom


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Minimum space is enough to overwinter the bees. If that's two deeps where you live or it's a deep and a half. Figure up the volume and shoot for that.


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## JaiPea (Sep 27, 2005)

Haggis asked:

> ....isn't there a great difference between the two in regards to 
> surface area of brood comb?

There is a big difference in efficiency between KTBH (sloped) and TTBH/Lang (rectangular) comb carrying capacity. The inside dimensions of the hive are a good way to measure capacity but there are other factors when measuring maximum achievable comb size. 

The mathematical approach: 

If you calculate the comb capacity of a top bar Comb using Scot McPherson's (http://beewiki.linuxfromscratch.org/index.php/BuildingTopBarHives) recommendations. His are for a KTBH, and for the sake of simplicity, they are being used here for a TTBH also. 

TopBar -- 16" (40cm): Actual is 16 - (2 sides at .75 and two beespaces at .375) = 13.75"
Height -- 9-10" (23-25cm): Actual is (9.5 - beespace) = 8.625
Bottom Board Width -- 7" (17.75cm): Actual is (7 - two beespaces) = 6.25

The TTBH comb area of 13.75 x 8.625 comes to 118.6 square inches
The KTBH comb area is reduced by the two triangular sides = (13.75 - 6.25 x 8.625) and measures only 64.7 square inches
The TTBH comb is over 80% larger than that of a KTBH (116.6 / 64.7 = 183%)

Those triangular sides cost you a lot of comb area, a 2'6" long TTBH has similar comb carrying capacity to a 4'6" long KTBH. If you assume 1 3/8" average size for bars you can fit 26 in a 3' hive, and 34 in a 4' long hive.

The comb capacities of the Lang frames I use are:
Deep Wood 17 x 8 = 136
Deep Plastic 17 x 8.5 = 144.5
Medium Wood 17 x 5 = 85
Medium Plastic 17 x 6 = 102

If Lang beeks in your area need two deeps of wood frames to winter you can figure 16 frames of brood/pollen (discounting the outside frames in both deeps). 

16 * 136 = 2176 / KTBH 64.7 = 33.6 bars 
16 * 136 = 2176 / TTBH 118 = 18.5 bars 

The bee approach: 

Balance capacity between breeding and storage. 

Hive capacity affects what bees will do, so you cannot make direct extrapolations unless you compare like capacities. A 2-deep/2-super hive is about 26 gallons in capacity so the bees will not build the same size of brood area if they are in a 16-gallon KTBH. 

The KTBH will have a smaller brood area because the bees will optimize the breeding area and honey capacity to build winter stores. 

The good thing about this hobby is that bees are capable of surviving and thriving in almost anything you give them. Go with what works for you, because it will almost certainly work for the bees. 

A couple of general rules of thumb:

- the bigger the hive the less maintenance
- the longer the hive the less use bees will make of the far end 


JaiPea


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