# Bees for TBH, if no packages or swarms avail?



## Dirtslinger2 (Dec 9, 2007)

Is there a fairly straightforward method to 'create' a swarm from a langstroth to add to a brand new un-drawn TBH? Basically can I stick a TBH in the place of an existing langstroth, then shake some bees including the queen into the TBH and have them just figure it out?

If so, what would one do with all the brood? Would it be taken over alright by other hives? Thanks.


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## RAFAEL/PR (Feb 23, 2012)

I Think you are talking about making a split not creating a swarm, there alot of info on making splits and that only works if you have some queens cell ,check on you tube, you don't want to make you bees swarm , you will lose them that way


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## Beethinking (Jun 2, 2008)

You can, indeed, just shake out all of the bees from the Lang into the TBH. However, the frames/brood, etc. would be wasted unless you had another Lang to stick them in. Just make sure the queen ends up in the TBH! I wouldn't recommend this method unless absolutely necessary. The other option would be to "chop and crop" the frames to fit the TBH. There are Youtube videos showing this method.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Here is how you can do a split. and keep both hives going. Shake the queen and bees from several hive frames into the top bar hive seal it up. take it a minimum of 2.5 miles from the location of the original hive. and set it up. the bees in the new hive will be too far to find their way home, and the old hive will build a new queen they will go to work almost immediately on the task and because they will have all the brood they will become a strong hive again in no time. The TBH bees will go to building comb right away. Having a productive queen she will begin laying eggs as soon a the comb is built. In fact on your initial inspection you may find multiple eggs in a single cell. do not panic, The house bees will move them to individual cells as they are completed.


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## Kristen2678 (Mar 21, 2012)

I've seen a video by Phil Chandler ( biobees) where he chops Lang frames into tbh shapes to convert them. Check his YouTube channel.


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## Greensasquatch (Apr 7, 2012)

It's a PITA but I have converted a nuc to top bar. The hive is thriving 6 weeks onward.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?268258-Installed-a-Nuc-into-TBH


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## Tim Bates (Mar 13, 2012)

You could build a Tanzanian and just add the NUC frames or build your KTBH the width of a lang and let the bees build down into the TBH. The latter would take more monitoring and manipulation I would think, but it should work.


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