# Help me! Help me!



## Hoosier (Aug 11, 2011)

My wife and I built four very nice TBH's with view windows in all of them. Then this spring I bought two 3# packages of bees with queens with intentions of filling the other two with swarms from or splits from the other two hives. We only did this because last year we did not see one single honeybee and thought we should help save bees. We can do that with four top bar hives running full speed. We don't need honey; my son has five hives and gives all we want. 

NOW, thanks to Michael Bush's book, catalogs from six bee supply companies, visions/worries of what to do with future excess swarms, unintentional drawings/doodling of LANGSTROTH HIVES, ... I find myself wanting a fancy Langstroth... NO I DON'T! NO I DON'T! NO I DON'T! NO I DON'T! NO I DON'T! 

SOMEBODY SAVE ME FROM MYSELF and Michael Bush!


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

There is no savng you once you have bees. The liberal/progressive thinking that there is only one way to keep bees we can work on.


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## oblib (Oct 28, 2011)

I started beekeeping with 10 this this year and up to 25 already. Can't seem to turn down a cutout trapout or swarm. Bees hook you quick and then you just got to get another fix:ws:


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## Charlie B (May 20, 2011)

Bees are the only way I can be a hoarder without anyone noticing.


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## casinoken (May 6, 2012)

I've seen long hives for langstroth size frames, but has anyone here ever built a TBH with angled sides that was wide enough to hang langstroth deep frames in so that u could start with a nuc and add foundationless frames afterward? I have all langs, but am interested in getting a couple of TBHs, just want to design one that could be interchangeable. Any thoughts appreciated.


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## oblib (Oct 28, 2011)

I don't see how you could angle the sides and fit a frame. If the bottom fits then the top would be too wide. Could just build it with straight sides though but, and plain bars would get the comb attached to the sides.


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## casinoken (May 6, 2012)

The design I came up with is much wider at the top, to make the lang deeps work, I was thinking to attach the frame to a 2 x 2, center the frame on it, and it would simply hang there. Of course, the hive would be both wider and deeper which may or may not cause other problems, just something I've been toying with in my mind.


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

I think the problem with making a TBH wide enough to hold a Lang frame is that the width of the hive would be something around 28 or so inches wide. I did mine the other way. The top bars are 19 inches so they just fit in a Lang. This way you can put a bar in a Lang hive to get it started and transfer it to a top bar, assuming you don't let them pull it all the way out, in which case you would have to probably cut it out and then trim the sides to fit a TBH. Phil Chandler has a video of a Lang box with angled sides on it. This is effectively just a small top bar hive, but I guess the thought is you could put it on top or underneath of a Lang to build out and do a split. Then you would just remove the bars and put it in the top bar hive.

I have made a plate to do a transition from Lang to TBH, but it has only been in place for a few days to know if it will work. (http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?271669-Lang-to-Top-Bar-adapter-plate) The foragers seem to hang out in the TBH, based on the exodus on a nice day (like this morning). Now that the rain has come they have repopulated the TBH portion of the Frankenhive. 

Someone suggested that I just bolt the Lang to the TBH. That probably would work, but it had pretty much settled on the top bar in the bottom by that time.


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## Keefis (May 4, 2012)

The angled sides are not totally necessary. i don't see any problem with a tbh that actually accepts the lang frame. They can draw comb in that shape if they want to.
TBH hives can be built to any size or shape.(look at the 50 gallon drum hives) , Look at dead trees in the woods, they don't seem to die at the same size, go figure.
I don't have any langs only home built recycled wood tbh hives. Totally free!!
The lang hives are more productive, but at what expense? They have so many boards and covers and bottoms and and supers and mediums and deep boxes and this and a kitchen sink.......!! 
Shannon--one other idea what about if you had a tbh with straight outer walls and removable inner walls that are at an angle. Put the lang frames in where you have removed the inner angle walls and circulate the lang frames out when the bees draw out enough combs on the top bars. 
But I still think you should build it square, inside and out. Just make the roof overhang enough to shade the walls like would happen if they were angled.


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Yes, the angled inner walls is what Phil Chandler did. A long hive is a good option if you don't care about looking through a window at the bees. Yes, you could put in a window, but odd are that if you made a long hive you would probably use frames. You can see stuff with the frames, but you would have to put in frames as you needed them otherwise they block the view. I know that hardcore lang folks say the bees work better vertically than horizontally, but the last cutout I did was about 6 feet deep into ceiling rafters. They seemed to be doing rather fine up there.

It would be great if there was some standard top bar dimensions that as a group people could standardize on. Even if there are several standards it would be better than the current situation. One of my favorite sayings is the great thing about standards are there are so many of them! At least then folks that sell nucs could build out hives and to those standard dimensions. But if you are off by a half of an inch or 4 degrees of angle things no longer match up.

The problem with transferring is the only way to go directly to a top bar is a chop and crop, top bar nuc that fits your hives, package bees or a swarm. Now you could go into several hives and place one bar in each and let them get quasi built out with comb and then do a split with those bars of comb from lang hives. I don't think there would be any fighting if you only brought the nurse bees with you (famous last words). It is probably too late to do this this year though. If you did try this you would want to purchase a queen, otherwise it would be the end of August before any queen they made could lay (assuming that some of the comb had eggs in it). This also assumes they pull the comb out on those bars. 

Probably the best thing now would be to build yourself a kick butt top bar with all the bells and whistles (viewing window, legs, peaked top, beautiful stain job, weather station, video surveillance, beer keg and grill, etc) and get a swarm in the spring. Swarms pull comb fast and if you are not happy with the queen you can re-queen it. Next best option would probably be package bees or a feral bee cutout. The last cutout I did with my cousin will end up being two hives and an injection of bees into a third hive. The problem with cutouts is you don't know what you got until you expose the hive, and it may not be a good candidate for a top bar. If you did a cutout you probably want to make some frames with bee space for transferring comb. Cutting all the wood at the necessary angles to make frames for a top bar is not a lot of fun though. If you had a weak Lang hive you could do a cutout and probably get decent results on the transfer, particularly if the comb is old and stiff. New comb is almost impossible to move to a top bar as it is too soft. Honey stores would be lost as well, but you could feed it back to the bees in a tray in the hive.


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## Terra Vita (Mar 4, 2012)

another way to work with both type of hive you can build a "transition box" like I did, I saw the idea from a company that were making TBH's but seem to have shut down after a fire.. here is a picture of what I did, to bring my lang to TBH, but It would be alot easyer to do TBH to Lang from this, You have room for an exluder in between if you dont want the queen in or out...
















The only thing is that you need to fit the lang frame height wise plus abit at the bottom and top for them to move, I got lucky it fit just neatly after all was done.
Originaly was designed to take lang nucs to a TBH because the suppliers were hard to find I assume..


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

Dang, my people were saying my plate adapter was complicated. Not a bad idea, but I'm not sure why the top bars have bee space in them. This kind of makes the top bar portion not a top bar. Was the idea to super the top bar? Looks like much better wood work than I can do in my garage with a hack saw and rat tail file!









Here is the bees in the basement of my hive, which is the top bar. So far the foragers seem to like it as a bunk house. In the morning lots of them fly out. There are three small pieces of comb in there. I see a lot of activity on those comb pieces during the day, but I really cant tell if they are making it inhabitable or just wondering around. They have chewed a hole in one of the pieces of comb.


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## Terra Vita (Mar 4, 2012)

of topic but my hive has hybrid top bars,I have a complete glass top covers , the entrance is on top of the bars and in that top cover so they can walk on the top bars and go down whichever bar they need. my hive is named Vita Hive if you do a search, quite alot of info from start to finish, might help with TBH to/from Lang.


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## shannonswyatt (May 7, 2012)

I looked at the pics of your hive when you posted it. It looks beautiful, but there is no way I could make one of those with my limited tools.


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## Che Guebuddha (Feb 4, 2012)

casinoken said:


> I've seen long hives for langstroth size frames, but has anyone here ever built a TBH with angled sides that was wide enough to hang langstroth deep frames in so that u could start with a nuc and add foundationless frames afterward? I have all langs, but am interested in getting a couple of TBHs, just want to design one that could be interchangeable. Any thoughts appreciated.


If Im not mistaken D. Murrell made his TBH so it fits his Lang Frames;
http://bwrangler.litarium.com/kenyan-top-bar-hive/

I made my new TBH so it fits the Swedish Low-Normal Hobby frame 39,5x36,5cm


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## mrobinson (Jan 20, 2012)

Well, just sit back and enjoy the infatuation.  The beauty of hTBH's is that they allow you to enjoy the hobby of beekeeping at no cost for "fancy-pants woodworking." We built our hives entirely from scrap wood that had been sitting outside on our farm for decades. _(If_ we were looking upon honey as a cash-crop then maybe we would be singing the praises of Lang's invention, but ... we're not. And, isn't it a wonderful thing to have _options._)

And, "well, you know how it is with these human infatuations." A swarm shows up. Or, you split a hive. Meanwhile, you find that you've set "your favorite reading chair" up there under the same grove of trees where the hives are, and you find that you enjoy "just sitting there, watching them" as much or more as you enjoy reading your book. One day, a bee lands on you. You don't panic... you watch each other, and then, she flies away. You actually look forward to that special moment when her sister will return. You find that you genuinely _enjoy_ the privilege of being the _custodians_ of a few colonies of these most-amazing insects. You find that you really enjoy having them around, and sharing your afternoon books with them. (And honey? :thumbsup: Hey, that's nice too.)

You really do have several options here. If you want to dive-in to Lang hives for any reason at all ... _feel free!

_Bees are very adaptable. (Look how well they manage to adapt to humans!) People have managed to be custodians to these ancient insects in ... Lang hives, top-bar hives, Warre hives, and even baskets. Meanwhile, they _still_ make fine homes in trees and walls!


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## Hoosier (Aug 11, 2011)

mrobinson said:


> Well, just sit back and enjoy the infatuation.  The beauty of hTBH's is that they allow you to enjoy the hobby of beekeeping at no cost for "fancy-pants woodworking." We built our hives entirely from scrap wood that had been sitting outside on our farm for decades. _(If_ we were looking upon honey as a cash-crop then maybe we would be singing the praises of Lang's invention, but ... we're not. And, isn't it a wonderful thing to have _options._)
> 
> And, "well, you know how it is with these human infatuations." A swarm shows up. Or, you split a hive. Meanwhile, you find that you've set "your favorite reading chair" up there under the same grove of trees where the hives are, and you find that you enjoy "just sitting there, watching them" as much or more as you enjoy reading your book. One day, a bee lands on you. You don't panic... you watch each other, and then, she flies away. You actually look forward to that special moment when her sister will return. You find that you genuinely _enjoy_ the privilege of being the _custodians_ of a few colonies of these most-amazing insects. You find that you really enjoy having them around, and sharing your afternoon books with them. (And honey? :thumbsup: Hey, that's nice too.)
> 
> ...


*Well said, MrRobinson, and thanks, and thanks to AmericanBeekeeper's, Oblib's, and CharlieBee's humorous but serious replies. Actually, I can/should/will do very well being satisfied with just managing my four top bar hives. Doing that well is as big a job that I want.*


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## AkDan (Apr 13, 2012)

I guess I also dont understand why if you wanted to go to a tbh from a lang why you couldnt brush bees off and requeen it treating it like a package....shake a some frames from the lang into the tbh box with a caged queen and start a tbh like that?

Or if you wanted the fancy window....make a tbh that can accept a standard lang bar at the bottom of the tbh box....you'll need to make an extension bar on the top to span the gap that the original bar probably wont make, glue or wire it on to the lang frame and start adding regular top bar bars for them to draw on....would be a good way to ensure straight bars to boot, no cross combing hopefully! It'd be one helluva wide top bar hive though! Dont see why it wouldnt work. Dont know if it would be worth while to save the lang frames once they start drawing comb keeping in the tbh....probably pull them and put them back into a lang box, or clean them up and store them if you're done with langs all together.


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