# Moving top bars into a lang?



## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

This year I plan to run a few Langstroth hives in addition to my TBH. My top bars are 16 inches long, and the brood bars are 1.25 inches wide.
Has anyone ever split a TBH into a Lang by just cable-tying several top bars (with the appropriate proportions of larva, brood, bees, and honey) to the top bar of a Langstroth frame?
I'm thinking that when the bar transfers are made and the queen is laying it would be possible to add regular frames between them one at a time. This way the original TBH/Lang bars could be worked to the edges of the hive body and eventually removed.
Does this sound practical? Adrian.


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## justgojumpit (Apr 9, 2004)

It may be easier to just cut the comb off of the top bars, and fit it into the frames. Use thin metal wire to hold it in place, and once the bees have the comb attached, you could remove the wire. They will then fill in any open space in the frames.

Also, this way, you would still have the top bars available if you decided to use the hive again. Also, the top bars would not allow the bees to go into the next super up, because they touch eachother and do not allow a beespace between them

justgojumpit


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Why don't you just start a new colony on new frames of foundation?

Or you could just treat your transition from top bar to lang as if the top bar was a cut out or tree hive. Cut the top bar comb to fit into the Lang frames and tie them in place. Or see the first statement.


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

I was thinking that as the comb is already attached securely to the topbar (and straight) cutting it off would cause more damage, and disruption, to it than just fastening it to the top bar of the frame. My point of this thread was to see if there are any inherent drawbacks to my idea. 
Thanks for the responses. I do also plan to buy a couple of packages and start them on foundation. Adrian.


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## paul.h (Aug 9, 2008)

looks like this would work well. I just built one. I have two Top Bar Hives and a package of bees ordered. 

[URL="http://www.beesource.com/plans/swarmframe.htm"

]http://www.beesource.com/plans/swarmframe.htm[/URL]


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I'd just do a cutout and tie the combs into frames.


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## sjbees (Jun 9, 2007)

Adrian, your strategy is fine, and it can be a low stress task for both you and the bees.

- Assemble the side and bottom bars of the Lang frames.
- Drill three holes along the top of the Lang top bar for #6 or #7 drywall screws.
- Drill a hole above the side bars.
- Drill pilot holes in the side bar.
- Do not screw the Lang top bars to the sidebars yet.
- Build as many frame assemblies as you need for the TBH combs you want to transplant.
- Make a simple jig which will keep the bottom and side bars upright.

Now you are ready to begin

- Set a Lang top bar on top of each TBH top bar you want to remove and screw them together.
- The TBH combs will be deeper than the comb depth of a Lang deep (about 8").
- Lift up the combo Lang/topbar and cut bottom of comb to size.
- Position top bar combo on sidebars and screw into place. 
- Voila! A Lang frame you can put into a brood box.

Put an assembled empty Lang frame with foundation in between your TBH transplants and the bees will be fine. If there is not quite enough space for the bees separate the frames a little so they can climb through. You don't have to insert an empty Lang frame between every transplanted pair of frames.

When you age the transplants out of your Lang you can unscrew the bars and reuse your top bar combs.


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

SJ, thanks for the suggestion, and encouragement. That is creative. Adrian.


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## wayacoyote (Nov 3, 2003)

Adrian,
I attach TB's inside of my frames to transfer TO a TBH later once they've started working them in a Lang. However, for transfering them TO a Lang, sure, just cut the comb off of the TB's and trim the comb to fit within your frames. Bees will do some surprising things with this. It is not uncommon at all for beekeepers to piece combs together into a frame, tie it in with rubber bands or fishing line (my preferance). The bees will have it stablized in no time and soon, you wouldn't even know that it didn't come from foundation. 

To help hold the comb in, I push regular carpenter nails in from the sides of the frame and through the bottom bar. If I needed to, I could drill some holes in the top bar of the frame for that purpose. 

The only reason I'd leave the TBH top bars on and put them into a frame would be if I wanted to be able to return them to the TBH. If so, yeah, that's no problem either.


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## Tomas (Jun 10, 2005)

Howdy Adrian,

I’ve transfered quite a few combs from top bars into lang frames like justgojumpìt suggests. It worked well. I usually had all the frames set up with the wire for tying in the comb so I could do the job fast and be the least disruptive as possible. The photo is from a cutout but it shows how I tie comb into frames.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/DonArturosferalhive5Abr07153.jpg

I was using some lang hives down here some years ago but all my trap hives were ktbh style. 

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/Traphivefullofbees.jpg

I didn’t want to use frames in the trap hives because the boxes occasionally disappeared on me (as in kids stealing them out of the trees). The trap hive boxes were made pretty cheap but I didn’t want to risk losing nice frames. So quite a few of the swarms I caught ended up getting moved into lang boxes with frames.

To avoid stressing the bees too much, I would sometimes first transfer the bees and their top bars/comb into a lang box, and leave them there for at least several days until they got use to the new box with a different entrance. If the combs were too deep for the lang box, I would cut off the bottom inch or two so they would fit (but you would have to trim off that bottom piece anyways so they could be tied into the frames). If the swarm was fairly new with small combs, the bees would just continue making and enlargening their combs, but in the rectangular shape of the lang box. When they got large enough, I would tie them into a frame.

I make my top bars the length of lang frames so they could fit into a lang box just for this reason. I can then come back later and tie the combs into frames a couple at a time or all in one shot, depending on how much disruption I want to cause.

I would leave a ridge of comb on each of the top bars. They would be used again in the trap hive, making it even more alluring to the next swarm. 

Just be careful you don’t kill the queen when you transfer the comb into frames. 

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Tom


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Thanks again guys, it is good to see how many different ways there are of achieving a goal. My top-bar hive was alive as of Friday; I'm not counting my chickens, we still have about 2 months before consistent flying weather.


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