# My First TB



## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

Just need to share my newest creation - its 48 inches long, 15 wide by about 11 tall. Metal roof to keep cool in the TX summers. I made the bars using pre-cut stakes which happen to be the perfect size. I then stapled a small strip onto the underside. Check out the pics:

Hive
TopBar
Top



Can't wait for next spring when I can get some bees in it!


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## beenovice (Jun 19, 2007)

Beautiful looking hive you got there ! 

I wish you good luck with your top bar hive next year !


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## suprstakr (Feb 10, 2006)

great -have fun - get lots honey .


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## crazy hivan (Aug 17, 2006)

Nice Hive, I like the color. Good Luck with it.

Stu


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## buckbee (Dec 2, 2004)

Nice job Dave! Did you use my dimensions, or was that a co-incidence? 
Look forward to hearing how it performs.
One Q - where's the entrance?


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

Yep, used your biobees design as a rough template - and elongated to 48 inches and made the roof from scraps I had laying around. Its now got a 37 x 6 viewing window, and I just (with help from TX Ashurst) transplanted a small hive from an old birdhouse to my hive. 

We placed the roof of the birdhouse (with comb attached) in the middle of the hive, so I may drill some additional entrance holes there. Currently, the only entrance is at the bottom on one side, with a small landing pad, I don't know if it's clearly visible in the pic.

I've got a question if anyone with more wisdom (which would be almost everyone here) cares to respond. In transit, I drove as gently as possible, but over half of the comb became dislodged and is now sitting upright on the floor of the hive. There is about 4 inches between the comb and the roof of the birdhouse where it was previously attached. Should I try to reattach this comb to bars? Or just wait for them to build on the bars and repair/replace the severed comb? Almost all of the comb is brood, and they have little to no stores, so I'm feeding them 1:1 w/ a little honey inside of the hive for now (small container with floating bubble wrap). The current physical size of the hive is sligtly less than half a cubic foot (they were crammed into this birdhouse).

I appreciate the comments and responses, I'll post pictures in about a week.

Dave


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## buckbee (Dec 2, 2004)

Dave,
You could leave it alone and they will either build down to it and re-attach, or - more likely - they will leave it as it is and you can remove it later. As it contains brood, you could sew it back onto the top bars, using a darning needle and soft string - not too difficult if you have someone to hold the comb and the bees are reasonably calm.


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## TX Ashurst (May 31, 2005)

Sorry to hear that comb fell. That takes away your ability to choose your time to settle them in.
Personally, I don't like comb fastened to the bottom of the hive, so I'd tie it to bars. The hard part is going to be keeping the combs in order. It's not the end of the beekeeping World to get them out of order, but it sets the bees back quite a bit and you need these girls to build up, not set back.

Rubber bands are easiest for tieing comb to top bars. I keep a bag of "postal size" rubber bands and a bag of 7" long ones. With those two sizes you can tie in almost all comb. The nice things about rubberbands is that they keep the comb tight against the top bar until the bees get it fastened in place. I've used other methods but they can sag and the bees don't attach the comb very well if it's not touching the bar. The downside is that they can pull the comb to the side - for which the solution is to pull the rubber band across the top of the bar until tension is equal on both sides.

If you go this route, you'll have to be very careful with the brood - not too hot, not too cold, don't touch the comb where they are growing, and so forth.

I suggested putting the birdhouse top in the middle of the hive so you could move them out of the roof and into their favored position - near the entrance.

Oh, and I apologize for forgetting to give you a hunk of beeswax like you asked.

Hope it all works out for you.


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

Well, after being gone for a week, my new bees are settling in quite nicely (as far as I can tell). 

I installed them the night before I left for a week (probably for the best, as that forced me to leave them alone) and left them with a quart of 1:1 sugar syrup to aid in the transition to a new place.

When I got back yesterday, I was surprised to see that they have completely rebuilt the comb that fell, attached the fallen comb to the bottom (and to the window that I put in, that's pretty cool!), and are out foraging like crazy. They have not attached any comb to the top bars yet, so last night I took out a piece of comb that the bees ignored after transporting them, crushed it, and rubbed it onto each of my top bar strips.

The roof of the old birdhouse/hive is lower than the top bars, so currently all of the comb is hanging from a surface about 6 inches below the top bars that I would like them to expand onto - I hope its not against the bees' policy to build above their current position. 

I do wonder if they will even expand onto the top bars with them being so far away (6-8 inches vertically, 2 inches horizontally), as it would mean having some airspace between the new comb and this old birdhouse comb. What do y'all think? I'm debating taking the birdhouse out, breaking off all of the comb, and reattaching it, in order, to top bars - but I see that as a pretty destructive solution. I'm hoping that I don't have to do that (at least this year).

However it turns out, this colony will be a great one to learn on, and I appreciate any comments or suggestions anyone might have - thanks -


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## TX Ashurst (May 31, 2005)

Dave, they will completely fill the birdhouse remnant with comb, then they'll move out into the main hive and build comb. If you let it get that far, it will be tough to get the birdhouse roof out of there, with comb above, comb below, and comb all around. Also, they will glue it in place with propolis. My advice is get that extra wood out of there as soon as you can.


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

I'm definitely considering removing the birdhouse top, but I should update you on what I did yesterday. 

I took your earlier advice and used my new smoker, and sprayer bottle to calm/distract the bees while I did a big (at least for me) move. I pulled the birdhouse top up, and moved it directly next to the entrance to the hive. In doing so, about one third (four tea saucer sized pieces of comb) were left attached to the bottom. I carefully removed each of these, and attached them to top bars and hung them next to the birdhouse in the hive. They were mainly storing the food I had been giving them in these combs, although when I tore them as I removed the birdhouse, there were some brood cells that got exposed.

So, now, four partial frames are hanging next to the birdhouse, with bees all over both. Would it be so bad to have some of the brood comb inaccessable under the bird house roof? Its directly next to the entrance, so I assume thats what it will end up as. I guess it could be a problem if I was trying to track down the queen, or check on all of the brood. I'll definitely take your advice to heart, and think it over tonight.

Thanks,
Dave

EDIT:
Well, I decided to go ahead and remove the birdhouse and give the bees a fairly clean slate. So, the comb that I saved yesterday was the comb that fell off of the birdhouse in transit, and it was older and stiff - pretty easy to tie on to a top bar. All of the comb in the birdhouse was new, white comb, and only about 10 percent was brood. I was only able to salvage one of the 6 or so small combs that were in the birdhouse, they were simply too soft to attach onto bars (at least by my unskilled hands). So, I ended up with a mess of honey and bees, I did my very best to scoop as many bees as possible back into the hive, but I estimate about 10 percent of the bees got scattered around the yard and are still outside of the hive right now.

I squeezed the soft comb and extracted as much honey as I could, and mixed that in with some sugar and water to feed them for the next few days. They have five bars of about 6x5 comb hanging and thats it. I managed to not get stung, despite dealing with a ton of bees. I hope that all of this hassle for them won't drive them off.

I'll keep this thread updated.

thanks again,
Dave


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## TX Ashurst (May 31, 2005)

You are learning as you do it, and that's the important thing. Remember, this is a very small colony and all the major nectar flows are past for us so they might die off. That's no reflection on you. If they survive until next spring's flow you will have had a huge success.

But for now, it's best to not ruffle their feathers any more. Let them settle in and bring in what they can from the fall flowers. If you can stand it, don't open the hive again until the end of September.

Have fun!


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## MrGreenThumb (Apr 22, 2007)

*No follower board?*

Hello Dave...

Looking at your picture I failed to see the follower board. Do you use one but it was taken out for the picture? Nice to see how the bees still gather all in on place without it...if not used.

thx


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

I do not have a follower board installed in this hive...they stay together pretty well on their own.


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

I guess this thread has gone from a post of some pictures to my personal log of sorts, hope someone down the line finds some of this useful.

I just wanted to post some pics for TX Ashurst (who gave me these bees) to see, and for anyone else who's interested. After transferring the comb from the birdhouse, the bees have done remarkably well (at least to my untrained eye), and have built a fair amount of new comb. They are working on 2 new top bars, and have largely expanded what comb I had hung for them. I think in one of the gaps between my attached comb they've built an "extra" comb, which will be a pain to fix, but I'll just let them have it for now. I've been supplementing them with 1:1 sugar/water feed, and they consume just over a pint per day on average. I still see plenty of bees in the morning flying in with full pollen sacks - and yesterday afternoon I noticed what I think was an orientation flight (about 40 - 50 bees flying around the entrance to the hive, with some others doing circles in the general area).

The pic I took today is here, and for anyone interested, I'm selling a hive (pic here) in the for sale section of the forum.

Thanks for looking,
Dave


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

Another pic here, I'm not sure if this is "too" close to the wall (like they've attached comb there or not). What do yall think?

Update:
I wanted to take a look at the comb today, so I gave them a few puffs of smoke and took out one bar. The bar was one of the original combs that I attached with twist ties. Kind of interesting what they've done with it. I think what I'm looking at is capped (and some uncapped) pollen, with honey surrounding it? I don't see any brood - which is a little troubling, but I only looked at 1 of about 8 or 9 bars, so who knows. It also looks like they have connected this comb with the one to the side of it, hard to avoid when attaching slightly irregular comb i guess. 

I also don't think they have attached to the wall, as these pictures seem to show. The smoke drove enough of them off the comb to be able to see pretty far in there, it looks like they are just to the wall, but not attached. Sweet!


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## TX Ashurst (May 31, 2005)

Dave, they are doing great. They are storing nectar/syrup. That comb that you thought had sealed pollen is actually capped brood. They are filling all their comb with honey while it is drying down, so they aren't giving the queen much room to lay in. But they are building nice comb and that is a good sign. You also have a little bit of capped honey along the top of that same bar, so they will have some sealed stores when they need it.

I think you've got a winner there.


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

*Recent Picture*

They have expanded the comb that I hung to almost the entire width of the hive, but havn't added any new combs - I guess that makes some sense. Lots of capped honey when I looked recently, but I didn't get too far forward. Pretty Cooool. Picture here


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## TX Ashurst (May 31, 2005)

Dave, they are doing very well! I am pleasantly surprised - and impressed. You couldn't ask for a better colony, considering how late they started.

It has been a very unusual year. I keep thinking the flow will HAVE to stop, but then we get a little more rain, and the temps. have stayed nice, and the nectar just keeps rolling in. Don't be tempted to take any honey this year (well, maybe a little taste ) so they have the fruits of their labor to get them through any winter we might have. Next year they will pay you back.

 Big smiles!


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## Tim Hall (Sep 14, 2007)

Wow! That does seem impressive. Very encouraging...I hope my first few hives start out that well.


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## biglipzit (Sep 18, 2007)

Hey I live in the Caribbean and would love to build an exact hive like this. What plans did you use and is it possible for me to get dimensions or a copy of the plans you used?
The hive and bees look great!


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

> Hey I live in the Caribbean and would love to build an exact hive like this. What plans did you use and is it possible for me to get dimensions or a copy of the plans you used?
> The hive and bees look great!


Well, I read up on different designs online, and the jist that I got from them was that its not all that crucial how you design it as long as:

a) your top bars arn't too long (mine are 19 inches total, 15 inches of comb space)
b) your top bars have the correct "bee space" between them. I am using 1.25 inch wide top bars for brood, and 1.5 inches for honey comb. Somepeople split the difference and use 1 3/8 spacing.

I used the design at www.biobees.com as a rough guide, but modified it to the dimensions that I settled on. It is roughly 5 inches wide at the base, and 14 inches wide at the top. It is 48 inches long (the width of a sheet of plywood). The way the angles work out, the hive ends up being around 11 inches tall (if I remember correctly).

I made the top up as I went along, and really, it was overengineered. Since then I have made a hive with a much lighter, simpler cover - although it still uses sheet metal as the waterproofing surface.

I added the window after the fact, just knocked it up from some stuff I had laying around.

The tools that I used for this were: a makita 9 inch circular hand saw, a miter saw (for the legs and top bars, not necessary), and a router for the top bars (also not necessary). Its held togeather by screws.

Feel free to PM me with more specific questions.

Best of luck,
Dave


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

*Shb*

Well, crap. Went out tonight to fix some errant comb building, and look what I saw scurrying away from a couple of bees I'm pretty sure this is a small hive beetle, and I know I've seen one other in the past couple of weeks, and I havn't been looking hard either. I guess I'll start reading up....


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## biglipzit (Sep 18, 2007)

Not sure if this helps but it seemed a little interesting and would work easily in a TBH.

http://beekeeperlinda.blogspot.com/2007/05/small-hive-beetle-trap-saga.html


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## DaveWilliamsTX (Aug 16, 2007)

Just an update for anyone who cares to know. The bees are wintering well, and still have stores of honey capped. There's not very many of them, but on these warm days in Feb there's a decent amount of activity around the hive.

Please please please please make it till spring!


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## BWrangler (Aug 14, 2002)

Hi Dave,

Neat hive. Thanks for sharing the photos. I know you are having fun.

Regards
Dennis


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