# Total newbie asking bar (lumbar) question



## Tim KS (May 9, 2014)

Cut your lumber to whatever size you want.


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## BoneBee (Nov 17, 2018)

Tim KS said:


> Cut your lumber to whatever size you want.


I don't have any equipment. I will be trying to get the boats cut at the hardware store, except for bars which I plan to hand cut. I'm not sure what "stock"pieces I should be looking for for the above.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

In my opinion 3/8" is too thin. Phil Chandler specs his at 3/4". When I played with TBHs I made mine a full 1" - after all, the top bars form the top of the hive and so the thicker the better (within reason).
LJ


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

If you want bars that are 1.5" wide, the simplest approach is to buy what are called 1x2 lumber. Those will be 1.5" wide by 0.75" thick by whatever length you buy. 8ft long is pretty standard, but other lengths may be available.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

not sure were your geting the 3/8 thickness from... my bars are any were from 5/8" ( made out of fence pickets) to 1"+(ruff sawn lumber) 
thicker bars are prefered in my book for the extra insulation


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## trishbookworm (Jun 25, 2016)

We bought a 2 x 6, and used a table saw to cut pieces that were 1 3/8 wide and about 1" deep. The depth should be at least 5/8 and really should be closer to 1". This is natural insulation (of course there will be a lid over it, but still) that helps the bees be able to regulate their environment better. We used a table saw with a jig to cut the bars to length. Though another time we cut the 2x6 to length first, then cut the bars off that... 

I used triangular pieces that are inside corner molding as the bees' comb guide - it can be nailed down triangle part up! Go to your big box lumber store, it should be about 88 cents per linear foot for unfinished pine. I would drill 3 nail holes equally spaced along the ridge line, then I used 1" finish nails to hammer them in. My bars are 20" long, so they extend past the edge of a Lang box, but the comb could fit in a lang box. The inside corner molding would be about 15" long, so there was at least 2.5" between the end of the bar and the start of the molding. It's good to have something that protrudes a bit - Michael Bush's website has great info about that. Many ways to approach this. And bees draw great comb sometimes without any guide at all... say if you decide to put the bar triangle guide side UP in the box, for some stupid reason, forget about it, and the bees draw comb on the bar like no big deal... 

The width is a dimension to think carefully about... if you have bars that are 1.5" wide, then the bees will try to put more than 1 comb on 1 bar pretty regularly. You will get good at correcting this. You should expect to inspect every 7-10 days. Every 5-7 is probably better when it is warm and you are feeding them sugar syrup so they can quickly draw out comb. Yes, you should expect to feed a new colony so they get that comb drawn out lickety-split. If you know now that you will have long stretches where you cannot visit the hive and open it up, STOP NOW and do not attempt a top BAR hive, but build one that can accommodate frames instead. the bees don't care... and bars are only a bit cheaper. If you want natural comb, use foundationless frames. 

Back to bars...If you have bars that are 1 3/8 wide, the bees will try to put 1 comb on 2 bars, after they have made about 10 or so brood comb. A Langstroth frame is 1 3/8 wide, for reference. They like the honey bars to be wider. I have spacers - 1/4" or less wide, and about as tall as the bars - that I put between a "fat" comb and its neighbor. 

If you can't cut your bars to the width you want, have you considered finding a friend with a table saw? Cutting enough bars from a 2 x 6 or a 2 x 8 is pretty quick, especially if you can then cut those to length. Maybe worth a case of beer? or future shares of honey! 

If none of your pals are equipped with a table saw, you can easily find a carpenter who for a fee would cut the bars to the desired with from a 2 x 6 or 2 x 8. It can be done!!!! My husband is friends with the table saw, I avoid it and never turn it on. 

Think carefully now about your entrances and bees' access to the hive. And about your intended mite treatment method. The varroa mite will be on some of your bees, and while you can get away with a year or so without treating, you may end up with smaller colonies who are not strong enough to make honey. There are beekeepers, especially in the south, who have documented good "overwinter" survival and good honey production, but in the north, the many who have tried have been disappointed with unacceptably high losses (more than 50%) and low yields. And high likelihood to swarm. They are your bees, you get to decide, one of the many ways beekeeping is challenging, because you have to make the call, and not doing anything is still a form of mite management. 

I ended up making a 1" hole in the bottom of the hive, with a hole saw bit because the bottom of the hive is thin luon. That's thin plywood, I think. There were bees in it at the time. This is not fun. I would take my oxalic acid vaporizer, which is the $100 or so wand with a heating element in it, and put it on the hole. Lots of vapor would escape and flow over me. This is not an optimal method of mite treatment, but I had on goggles and a organic vapor acid gas mask. So I didn't die.  Another poster - shoot, I don't recall the name - has an actual slot in the bottom cut in for the wand to be placed in. A piece of wood is in the slot when the slot is not in use. Keep in mind that for the Langstroth hive, you can put the wand into the hive under the combs, but you WILL NOT be able to do that in a top bar hive - combs drawn to within 3/8 inch of the bottom of the hive, and the wand is at least 1/2" deep. Making the hive taller makes the combs longer, doesn't change the bee space. Only the use of frames allows you to control the bee space.

Access for this kind of mite treatment needs to be close to the center of the brood nest - about bar 8. 

I have the bees' main entrance at the narrow end of my Tanzanian hives. I have 3, a bit bigger than a wine cork, but can be plugged with a wine cork, very securely with a wine cork with a rubber band around it.  This I drilled with a regular drill and a 1" bit. I think it is a spade bit? Again, 3 on that side. Also, 3 in the middle. And 3 at the other end. THose are for transforming the 1 hive (temporarily) into 3 "nucs". During the summer, I have all 3 entrances open on one narrow side, and sometimes 1 on the middle side. During the winter, just 1 on the narrow side.

When the hive is small, just bees and under 10 bars drawn out, I also only use 1 entrance, and a follower board that only gives the bees enough room to work on like 2 more bars that they currently occupy. You'll want 2 followers per hive body. little john has a website - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com/beek15.htm where he talks about making a follower for a different type of hive, with PVC sheets clipped to a squishy arc that is the "side" of the follower. Since the side of the hive will warp with time, this is how I am making mine from now on!!! And I have the bottom go to the bottom of the hive, so it is bee-tight, but I have holes in it so the bees can go through if I want an inverted jar with holes for feeding sugar syrup on the other side. The kenyan hives followers do not go down to the bottom, but you can make something to stuff in a gap if you like that design - in case you need a bee-tight divider.

My hives are 42" because that way we get 2 lids from 1 sheet of plywood. But I recommend 48". My 42" hive has room for 25 bars of bees, and a healthy queen will be able to lay enough eggs to eventually have every single bar in that hive covered with bees. You want that, for there to be honey production!!!! but just keep in mind a queen can easily populate a hive that far, and you will only be able to get 1 full size in a hive, and it is harder to get full bars out and empty bars in that you think...

Also do find a mentor. Even if they use Langstroth hives, bees are bees, and it takes some guidance to be able to read the condition of the colony from the combs. The traffic in and out, and even the presence of bees tells you only that there were eggs laid in the last couple months. A hive that will be dead before winter can look strong if you are only looking at the entrance traffic and miss the cues about the presence, absence or poor state of a queen in the hive.


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## AvatarDad (Mar 31, 2016)

to echo what others have said I think "1 3/8" was misread to be only "3/8", so I think you are using the wrong size. Your top-bars need to be about *1 3/8"* wide. (Some people will say *1 1/4*, and some will say *1 1/2*, and some will suggest different sizes for honey or to use "shims". I'm not getting into all of that here... if you start with *1 3/8* that should get you pretty far into your first year).

Radar Sidetrack mentioned "1x2" lumber, and that's right on. I personally cut top bars out of a "2x4" which has been ever so slightly planed from 1.5" to slightly less. But if you don't want to saw all day you can make bars out of 1x2 lumber pretty much without any modification... a little planing or sanding if you want to. Any "two by" lumber will be almost exactly the right width.


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## BoneBee (Nov 17, 2018)

Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate it. 

My understanding is that the honey comb is to be 1.25" wide and the brood comb 1.5". The 1 3/8" is a compromise on this. So, if I can, then have both and managing the hive I place then appropriately as they draw the comb. This negates the need for spacers. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I will ask around at my local meeting if anybody wants to help me cut some wood. 🙂

I'm out of Central Florida btw. Thank you again.


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## BoneBee (Nov 17, 2018)

trishbookworm said:


> We bought a 2 x 6, and used a table saw to cut pieces that were 1 3/8 wide and about 1" deep. The depth should be at least 5/8 and really should be closer to 1". This is natural insulation (of course there will be a lid over it, but still) that helps the bees be able to regulate their environment better. We used a table saw with a jig to cut the bars to length. Though another time we cut the 2x6 to length first, then cut the bars off that...
> 
> I used triangular pieces that are inside corner molding as the bees' comb guide - it can be nailed down triangle part up! Go to your big box lumber store, it should be about 88 cents per linear foot for unfinished pine. I would drill 3 nail holes equally spaced along the ridge line, then I used 1" finish nails to hammer them in. My bars are 20" long, so they extend past the edge of a Lang box, but the comb could fit in a lang box. The inside corner molding would be about 15" long, so there was at least 2.5" between the end of the bar and the start of the molding. It's good to have something that protrudes a bit - Michael Bush's website has great info about that. Many ways to approach this. And bees draw great comb sometimes without any guide at all... say if you decide to put the bar triangle guide side UP in the box, for some stupid reason, forget about it, and the bees draw comb on the bar like no big deal...
> 
> ...


Thank you for the incredibly detailed post. You answered a bunch of questions I didn't know I had.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

BoneBee said:


> My understanding is that the honey comb is to be 1.25" wide and the brood comb 1.5".


Other way around ... 
LJ


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

I guess it depends on how you manage your hives and likely to some extent the genetics of your stock 

I like to move older combs to the back to rotate then out as they get harvested and I do a lot of "checker boarding" placing empty bars between drawn bars. I also make a lot of splits, run mating nucs, etc. my preference is to keep all my bars the same size...


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## Tim KS (May 9, 2014)

BoneBee said:


> I don't have any equipment. I will be trying to get the boats cut at the hardware store, except for bars which I plan to hand cut. I'm not sure what "stock"pieces I should be looking for for the above.


I'm sorry, but I presumed that you meant "building" a hive when you said 'make'. It might be tough finding lumber pre-cut to the exact measurements of your plans.

Others seem to have answered your questions with more detail than I. Good luck with your project.


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## whiskers (Aug 28, 2011)

1X2 furring strips (actual 1 1/2 X 3/4) are cheap. Get a handsaw to cut them to length and a hand plane to adjust the width. Watch some youtube videos of the woodwright's shop to get ideas how to keep them from sliding away when you plane them, basically push them into a V shaped stop on your bench. You should be able to make all you need in an afternoon and still have time for coffee.
Bill


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>16- bars 19” by 1-1/4” by 3/8”
>18- bars 19” by 1-1/2” by 3/8” 

If you start with some laths from the lumber yard (they are 1-1/2" x 3/8"x 48") and cut them to length. Then add a piece of chamfer molding for a comb guide, the comb guide will also add a lot of stiffness to the bar.

>The above is what I am to look for but over the phone they didn't seem to know or find the 3/8" (1/2" only) and width wise only the 1 1/2" was found. 

Lath only comes in 1-1/2" To get 1-1/4" you will have to rip them down to width.

>What am I looking for? What phrasing (2x4, etc?) Or cut size? I am assuming the measurements above are "true size." Everything appears to be thicker and nothing at 1 1/4". I am assuming 1/2" would be fine.

My reason for 3/8" is that is the thickness of the ears on the top bar of a langstroth frame. It makes a hive that I can put Langstroth frames in it or 3/8" top bars. I make the frame rest rabbet 3/4" deep to leave 3/8" above the bars so the bees can patrol it if they want and small hive beetles or ants can't hide there.


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## BoneBee (Nov 17, 2018)

Michael Bush said:


> >16- bars 19” by 1-1/4” by 3/8”
> >18- bars 19” by 1-1/2” by 3/8”
> 
> If you start with some laths from the lumber yard (they are 1-1/2" x 3/8"x 48") and cut them to length. Then add a piece of chamfer molding for a comb guide, the comb guide will also add a lot of stiffness to the bar.
> ...


How do you attach the camfer molding? 

And thank you for your reply.


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## whiskers (Aug 28, 2011)

Mr Bush refers to plasterer's lath. Not used much any more as a base for plaster, although a small demand may exist for crafts and such.

If you want a 3/8 end on the bar you could saw half way through a 3/4 piece and chisel away the waste. Otherwise you could find someone with a table saw and ask them to rip them out of two by (actual 1 1/2 inch) material. If you aren't in a hurry this is something a woodworker would make out of scraps from other jobs, perhaps for a promise of future honey.


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## texanbelchers (Aug 4, 2014)

BoneBee said:


> My understanding is that the honey comb is to be 1.25" wide and the brood comb 1.5". The 1 3/8" is a compromise on this.


LJ is correct that the brood works better at the smaller spacing of 1.25". I found it much simpler to use a single width bar. It is much easier to get straight comb drawn in the middle of the brood. Then older comb can be moved down for honey storage. You can use spacers to allow them to draw the comb out wider. Unfortunately, this means the standard 2x material is too wide without cutting.

The 1 3/8" is a compromise, but it works. This is the Langstroth frame standard width. Making the hive such that it can accept frames is also an advantage if you need to install a nuc, do a cutout or provide frames for friends. Flexibility is a great benefit.

By the way, you will read many times that location is critical. You'll get better advice on things if you update your profile.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>How do you attach the camfer molding? 

Glue and nails. If the nails go all the way through, clinch them. I use outdoor carpenter's glue (Titebond or Elmer's).


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## jnqpblk (Apr 7, 2015)

What I made my top bars out of was standard 1x2 (ie. 1"x2") material. That designation represents the rough cut size of wood that is then finished smooth all four sides and is actually much closer to 3/4"x 1 1/2", but the 1x2 rough cut size is still the verbiage used even though the wood is then smoothed/finished to a considerably smaller size. This tends to be sizing for softwoods, which tend to be rough cut to the inch. The 3/4" thickness I simply put a rabbet underneath the ends to rest on the TBH sides and ripped the 1 1/2" width down to 1 5/16", a measurement just under the 1" comb thickness plus 3/8" beespace. The 1/16" inch under 3/8" beespace is for the lack of a perfectly straight cut that one actually acquires in wood. But when putting my 1 5/16" wide top bars all together, I got a near perfect layout on 1 3/8" per topbar. 

Verbiage for hardwoods, which tend to be used more in more multiples to the inch, are termed so many quarter, and I'm not clear, ie. do not recall whether that so many quarter is the finished size or rough.

My TBH I was building from general sizing off the net, but altered so the trough could be made of 48" 2x4's. So, for the bottom I used 2, and 3 for the sides. Bottom edges were given a +-15 degree bevel to fit the slope of the sides.

If I were to do over again, for this area, SW WA, I'd add at least one more 2x4 to the sides to get a taller comb, allowing bees to have more ample stores above the brood chamber, rather than at end. Here, it is important during the cold of winter for bees to be able to go up to access stores, since when in a tight cluster and needing to move sideways to access stores, they'll die (starve) instead, since they are unable to move/access stores more than about 1/2" to the side from a tight cluster.


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## Yunzow (Mar 16, 2017)

I think...
you are better off using spacers, especially if you don't have ready access to a table saw.

My first few hives were using the specs as Michael Bush provides on his website, for the top bars. So I did cut a bunch of bars 1.25 inch wide and 1.5 inch wide.

It's just easier, say, to cut the top bars 1.25 inch wide and use spacers to make it 1.5 inch wide, in my experience. Because. Despite your best efforts those bees aren't going to want to line up perfectly with your top bar widths.

also, might be cheaper to buy wooden chopsticks and staple them to your top bars, instead of that molding.




BoneBee said:


> Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate it.
> 
> My understanding is that the honey comb is to be 1.25" wide and the brood comb 1.5". The 1 3/8" is a compromise on this. So, if I can, then have both and managing the hive I place then appropriately as they draw the comb. This negates the need for spacers. Please correct me if I am wrong.
> 
> ...


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## jnqpblk (Apr 7, 2015)

Yunzow
I challenge you to do the actual research on honeybee combs. Both feral hives and managed hives.
Over a century ago, Langstroth and other beekeepers during the same period recognized the consistency of comb building and the layout of beespace between the combs. Thus, Langstroth frames set on 1 3/8" center to center layout.
Comb thickness in hives is so close to one inch as to be amazingly phenomenal. 
When I built my topbars for a TBH, I ripped them at 1 5/16" knowing wood can't be cut as accurately as metal. When these topbars were grouped together, the roughness of the edges placed them pretty darn close to 1 3/8" center to center. And the bees did indeed follow that pattern with their comb build under these topbars.

"Despite your best efforts those bees aren't going to want to line up perfectly with your top bar widths."
Well, yes they do, and phenomenally well on a 1 3/8" layout. Absolutely no need for shims, chopsticks, or any other bothersome spacers.

Why do you think Langstroths 1 3/8" spacing for removable frames has stood the test for over a century?

Yes I do admit that bees initially may indeed have fatter "honey" comb, but as they use it year after year, they will chew that fat comb right back to a fairly consistent 1" comb, 3/8" bespace, 1" comb, ...


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

All combs were spaced by eye until Julius Hoffman decided on 1 3/8" and made self spacing frames. There are many historic references here showing various spacings, most of which are smaller than 1 3/8":
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesframewidth.htm

I think 1 1/4" bars with 1/4" spacers works fine. It's just a lot less cutting to do 1 1/4" for half and 1 1/2" for the other half, since I don't have to rip the 1 1/2" at all (a one by two already is 1 1/2"). The number of ripped pieces increases a lot when you make all of them 1 1/4" with 1/4" spacers. Nothing wrong with the outcome, but not only is it more cuts, but more pieces of wood to keep track of.


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## trishbookworm (Jun 25, 2016)

hmmm I would love to hear some details about how jnqpblk is managing adding bars? 

The way I have done it, to add new bars at the boundary between the brood and the honey storage, as eventually led to fat comb - especially the honey part! - even for brood comb. The bees have a nice 1 3/8 space and choose to make adjoining drawn comb fat, instead of drawing out their own nice comb, from time to time.

My bees are sometimes contrary!  it may be that with a weaker flow and with adding bars when adjacent comb is uncapped honey, I am running into these problems.

I find spacers essential, as the bees do odd things and spacers can fix it.


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## Murdock (Jun 16, 2013)

avatardad is spot on. I pick up pieces of 2x6, 2x8, 2x10 in the scrap where houses are being built. This scrap is great for top bars and once you set up for 3/4 x 1 3/8" you can cut 50 or so and use them whenever...free wooden ware. Cut a groove on one side, insert a paint stirrer and wa-la.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

jnqpblk said:


> Absolutely no need for shims, chopsticks, or any other bothersome spacers.


For anyone finding this hard to accept - it might be worth reflecting on how bees build combs when humans aren't involved: they don't build separate 'brood-combs' and 'stores-combs' - they just build 'combs' ... and then use the same combs (all having the same comb spacing) for both purposes.

When working like this, there are two bee-spaces between each 'brood' comb which allows two bees to then work on them 'back-to-back' as it were. Towards the top of such a 'brood' comb, and between combs used exclusively for honey stores, the cells are duly extended outwards such that only one bee-space then exists between them.
When such extension occurs in brood combs, what develops is an inter-comb gallery shaped rather like two saucers placed rim to rim - an ideal shape for retaining temperature within that slot. And - should these combs be again required for brood-rearing purposes at a later date, the cell length is dynamically reduced for precisely that purpose.

Indeed, although beekeepers tend to focus more-or-less exclusively on combs (understandably, these being visible), there is seldom much focus placed on the non-visible inter-comb galleries - and yet it is within these galleries that the adult bees spend the majority of their time.

One of the reasons I have such a poor opinion of 'Natural Beekeeping' methods - especially as promoted by certain high profile advocates of the Natural Beekeeping/KTBH movement - is precisely because of this insistence to install wider spaced bars for honey storage ... 'cause such spacing certainly ain't Natural.
LJ


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## BoneBee (Nov 17, 2018)

Thanks all for the responses. I have been reading each reply and the discussion generated.



little_john said:


> For anyone finding this hard to accept - it might be worth reflecting on how bees build combs when humans aren't involved: they don't build separate 'brood-combs' and 'stores-combs' - they just build 'combs' ... and then use the same combs (all having the same comb spacing) for both purposes.
> 
> When working like this, there are two bee-spaces between each 'brood' comb which allows two bees to then work on them 'back-to-back' as it were. Towards the top of such a 'brood' comb, and between combs used exclusively for honey stores, the cells are duly extended outwards such that only one bee-space then exists between them.
> When such extension occurs in brood combs, what develops is an inter-comb gallery shaped rather like two saucers placed rim to rim - an ideal shape for retaining temperature within that slot. And - should these combs be again required for brood-rearing purposes at a later date, the cell length is dynamically reduced for precisely that purpose.
> ...


What spacing do you advocate? Do you advocate different spacing for brood and honey?


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

BoneBee said:


> What spacing do you advocate? Do you advocate different spacing for brood and honey?


Well - each to their own. If I was a dyed-in-the-wool 'Natural Beekeeper', then I'd install ALL my bars at whatever spacing the bees were 'happiest' with. (by 'happiest' I mean not indulging in comb-to-comb adhesions) 

Bear in mind that bees vary in size - which largely depends upon the cell size of the comb in which they were reared. In turn, the size of those bees determines both the size of the cells they will construct themselves AND the optimal spacing between those new combs.

So - unfortunately this isn't a fixed measurement. Each beekeeper needs to discover the spacing which best suits the bees that they're keeping: 1+1/2" would most probably suit bees originating from large-cell foundation, whereas 1+1/8" is probably more appropriate for feral bees or bees which have been reared on foundationless combs. 

But - if I were a Honey-Farmer (which I'm not) - then I'd most certainly install honey combs at maybe as much as 1+3/4" - or whatever spacing was found to return the most honey.

The attitude which surrounds the fixed spacing of combs is one of many reasons I don't use Top Bars anymore. Even our 35mm commercially-produced frames are a compromise I no longer tolerate. The bees I keep here are 'happiest' at 34mm, and I'm planning to trial 33mm next year, and then watch to see what happens. It's the only way. One millimetre may not sound much to us, but for insects which are only a few millimetres in size, it's a BIG deal - which is THE reason why I now use foundationless frames with adjustable spacing.
'best
LJ


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## jnqpblk (Apr 7, 2015)

trishbookworm,
First, the top bar hive I made was not for myself. As soon as I built it I gave it to the new beekeeper I built it for. As I have stated already, my top bars were made by cutting them 1 5/16" wide and when stacked in the hive, fell on a near perfect 1 3/8" layout. A saw kerf was cut in the bottom and a strip with sharpened guide edge was placed in the slot. The hive was 4' long and had enough topbars to fill the length. The bees for this hive was a swarm I captured. All bars were in place, with an equal width follower board, to expand the area of the bees. What comb the bees did draw out did follow the guide strips, but they only drew about 10-13 bars. I do not recall the specifics, whether it was a late season swarm, or much of the details, but I know it didn't make it into winter.

I understand the tendency of bees to build fat honeycomb, if they are not simply filling ready made 1" thick comb. Since this was not my hive, neither did i manage it. This top bar hive is the only one I have built. 

For myself, I have +-20 Langstroth hives and often times will simply literally cut back fat honey comb, like when they are building one foundation out into the space of another unbuilt foundation. I find the 1 3/8" layout to be such an absolute, that my bent is to encourage the bees to do so rather than build fat honey comb. Once they have comb built out, they tend to even cap honey comb closer to the 1" thick comb, or maybe go over about a 1/16", thus making the beespace between closer to 1/4".


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

> For anyone finding this hard to accept - it might be worth reflecting on how bees build combs when humans aren't involved: they don't build separate 'brood-combs' and 'stores-combs' - they just build 'combs' ... and then use the same combs (all having the same comb spacing) for both purposes.


,
even if it has the same cell size, bees often cap cells with honey in it at a longer length, I am sure many beekeepers here have seen honey drawn out past the end of there hoffman frames ...combs like jnqpblk is talking about

this wider comb impacts the spacing of the next comb... Doc WAM has a good write up on it https://www.beeculture.com/why-are-my-top-bar-combs-crooked/
this shows what happens when humans arn't involved... the bees change the spacing... henc its a common KTBH topic, what human involvement will "fix" the spaceing to what it "should" be.

the other things bees do is draw drone comb, both for drones and to store honey in, like extending the brood sized cells, it uses less wax to store more honey, This makes for much fatter combs. I am sure many of the fokes who do cutouts have seen this, I am sure many KTBH fokes have harvested such a comb. Nice clean drone comb, no cocoons. 
I alternate blank bars between drawn, and often rotate brood combs to the back, keeping them drawing worker combs in the center of the nest. This keeps my combs strait, and more importantly gives me worker sized food combs for splits, I need them to change that comb of food in to one of brood, hard to do if its drone comb. 
Bees don't build a standard one size fits all cell, thats why beekeepers use standardized imprinted foundation and frame spaceing, interchangeability.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

msl said:


> ,... this wider comb impacts the spacing of the next comb... Doc WAM has a good write up on it https://www.beeculture.com/why-are-my-top-bar-combs-crooked/
> this shows what happens when humans arn't involved... .


In that article there isn't a single example of combs being drawn without some kind of human involvement.



> Bees don't build a standard one size fits all cell


I didn't say they did - I said they use they same *spacing* between combs. The only way they could adjust that spacing at a later date would be to tear down several of their combs in order to re-draw them at a new spacing - which they most certainly don't.
LJ


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

bee space, and comb spacing are to very different things, at least to me... different combs have different spacing do to there different thickness, if they didn't varry the comb spaceing they would not be able to maintain a constant bee space 
they don't adjust the spacing at a later date,but they sure build combs at one as the swarm transitions from the 1st few brood cycles all the way to storing a crop. 
If bees kept the spacing and thickness constant, being a topbar beekeeper would be much easer


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