# Is it OK to have Top Bar Hive and Langstroth in Same Bee Yard?



## treeWinder (May 3, 2013)

no problems for the bees if you have both in the same yard. Enjoy.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

You can certainly have langstroth and top bar hives in the same apiary.

The treatment free bees may be a different matter if you want to keep their line going when they requeen themselves.


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## Sovek (Apr 27, 2014)

My suggestion? Build your hives to lang widths (18 1/2" inside width) and dont put the angle in them, have the sides straight up and down. This allows you to keep your top bar but swap in lang frames if you need bees. Put a 1x3" stringer along the top so that you can close up the hive with lang frames in there. 

I did a TBH last year from a 10 frame lang and doing it all over again, I would have built my hives the way I am this year. 

Also, just because you have frames doesnt mean you cant keep it horizontal. If you are doing TBH because you dont want to do any heavy lifting, look at building long hives. Though if I was you, I'd keep them 2ft long and then add a super or two later on or possibly even wait till the year after. It makes it SOOOOO much easier to move, or put in place. My 4ft plywood box is very heavy just being empty.


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

No they must be seperated, the top bar and langstrong will not get along. Constant fighting and bickering. LOL jk.


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## Cub Creek Bees (Feb 16, 2015)

Mine are 4 feet apart and hot dallit, I'm gonna find out just who makes the honey!


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Just can't interchange is all


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## Cub Creek Bees (Feb 16, 2015)

Well that's debatable


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## Kofu (Jan 26, 2011)

I have both in the same yard -- no problem. The only thing I can transfer from one system to the other is queen cells, which I did recently. The bees in the TBH had decided to swarm a lot earlier than the other bees, so I got some swarm cells out of that and made them useful. It is frustrating, a little, not to be able to move frames from one system to the other. I've considered cutting comb from top bars and putting it in lang frames, but haven't done that yet.

But for a newbee, it's great experience to have both systems running together in the same yard. The bees _really_ don't care. They don't know any different.


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## jennSAL (Jan 6, 2014)

Last year I think I was asking for advice on how to put a langstroth 5 frame nuc into a TBH. This year I made a second "Tanzanian" TBH which fits langstroth hives so that was an easy TBH to put my langstroth nuc into. (I "solved"- ie don't know yet if it works so well- the sloped "Kenyan" TBH getting a langstroth nuc by putting the frames in perpendicular to the TBs on a frame that fits in. Plenty of comb being built on the regular TBs perpendicular to the frames but never brood there yet. Wish I'd made both TBHs straight sided.


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## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

burns375 said:


> No they must be seperated, the top bar and langstrong will not get along. Constant fighting and bickering. LOL jk.


No, that's the beekeepers, not the bees.


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## AdamBeal (Aug 28, 2013)

Last year I started with a top bar hive. This spring I split that hive into a lang (moved the tbh queen and shook bees off brood comb into lang then cut brood comb out and rubber banded in empty lang frames). It wasn't too hard and it worked great both hives doing well. I bought a lang nuc and caught a swarm this year so up to 4 hives now 3 langs and my older TBH. I am really enjoying the langs more than I thought I would.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Wish I would have made my top bars hives the size of deep frames (horizontal Langs instead of true "top bars") so that I could go between them. My top bar combs will fit in a Lang, but the comb built is too big not to be "contained" within a frame. And if you put them above another box without a frame, you can kiss them goodbye because they will attach them to the frames below (they see it as a continuous comb from top box to bottom) and you won't be able to free them without lots of cutting and holding and rubber banding. I finally have all of my combs cut from top bars and they've been reattached nicely in deep frames in my Lang. Won't make that mistake again.


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## cgybees (Apr 20, 2015)

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> Just can't interchange is all


Not quite true... you can probably put your top bars into the lang setup if needed, but would have to strap bar+comb or cut off comb and rubber band / wire into a lang frame. Going the other way you'd have to cut down the foundation and wire it onto a top bar, probably with comb / brood damage. Definitely a tricky operation in both directions, trickier to put lang into top bar.... but as an emergency 'save' for example if you lose your queen and they don't replace her in one hive, it's a life-saver - you can drop in a frame / bar of brood and eggs and solve the problem. (That sort of potential emergency is why I decided to do the same thing you are). Feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt, I'm new at this too.


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## cgybees (Apr 20, 2015)

jennSAL said:


> Last year I think I was asking for advice on how to put a langstroth 5 frame nuc into a TBH. This year I made a second "Tanzanian" TBH which fits langstroth hives so that was an easy TBH to put my langstroth nuc into. (I "solved"- ie don't know yet if it works so well- the sloped "Kenyan" TBH getting a langstroth nuc by putting the frames in perpendicular to the TBs on a frame that fits in. Plenty of comb being built on the regular TBs perpendicular to the frames but never brood there yet. Wish I'd made both TBHs straight sided.



You could always make a custom frame or two with 'filler' pieces on bottom corners in your lang hive, and leave them in the brood boxes - then you'd always have a TBH compatible frame of brood to stuff in the TBH from the lang if needed.


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## jennSAL (Jan 6, 2014)

cgybees said:


> You could always make a custom frame or two with 'filler' pieces on bottom corners in your lang hive, and leave them in the brood boxes - then you'd always have a TBH compatible frame of brood to stuff in the TBH from the lang if needed.


Thanks Calgary, great idea! Next woodwork project, tomorrow. I lived in Edmonton in 5th grade- the year in the US we learn the states and their capitols. Never did learn them.


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## cgybees (Apr 20, 2015)

jennSAL said:


> Thanks Calgary, great idea! Next woodwork project, tomorrow. I lived in Edmonton in 5th grade- the year in the US we learn the states and their capitols. Never did learn them.


Post pics if you decide to do this, I'm thinking of doing the same thing..


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