Top Bar Hive 5 month inspection, badly managed combs.

[@atmm89]

I will keep watching your progress

[@robstoddard9521]

Good stuff. Smoker doesn't keep them calm, it drives them away, but it can make them antsy. When I do inspections, I'll use sugar water to calm them, and the smoker to get the bees out of the way. Your top bar looks really good for "I put bees in and didn't inspect for five months." I suggest you bring a chunk of canvas along that you can use to cover the openings in the hive while you work. That way they won't have that avenue of attack. I also suggest making some bars without the ridge, but with holes in it that you can run some deck screws through. When you get cross-comb or double-comb and you have to break that comb off, you can simply screw the comb onto the bar. That should hold the comb on for long enough to get the bees to properly attach it. It will be quite delicate until they attach it, so keep that in mind in successive inspections.

[@DuckPondsFarm]

Thanks for the pointers, I'll use some of that info for sure. I have been doing weekly/fortnightly inspections, but there's been no real growth until very recently due to lack of resources.

[@claythomas7982]

The fix to this is ensure your hive is level both ways. The bees build their comb straight down. Make sure your hive is plumb both ways. Long way and across the top bars.

[@simplytopbarbeekeeping2107]

Getting ready to start my fifth bee season with top bar beehives here in southern Illinois USA. It’s been definitely a learning experience. My first hive I installed the swarm and had similar problems as you did with Cross Combing. Watching a lot of KZbin videos etc. I realized how quick a swarm builds comb, from then on I check the hive every three or four days to stay ahead of the cross combing by manipulating the comb back onto the guides. I also learned the next year to install a bar or two of straight comb with my new hive it helped immensely getting them started. Also I was told to coat the guide on the bar with wax and that may help them to start and stay on the guide. As time moved on, I really don’t have a lot of trouble anymore in the brood area but sometimes by the time they get to the very end of the hive in the honey section they build such big combs that they start to try to curve it again. The good thing is those are the bars I usually harvest. I to make videos at all the experiences I’ve had with my hives it’s very good occasionally to go back and remember how the hives have progressed. My wife and I visited a friend of hers near Adelaide a few years ago. I love your country and the people there were great cheers!

[@DuckPondsFarm]

Thank you. Yes I'm enjoying the learning experience even if it can be challenging at times. I've just managed my first successful split so I'm having a good season this time around.

[@simplytopbarbeekeeping2107]

@@DuckPondsFarm Was you able to move your queen to the new hive or did you leave her in the old?

[@DuckPondsFarm]

@@simplytopbarbeekeeping2107 I left her in the old hive. When I did my last video and found that the split hadn't taken, I moved a couple more bars of newly laid eggs and stores over to the new hive. When I inspected the new hive a few weeks later there was a fair amount of capped brood and we found the queen as well. Interestingly, when I inspected the old hive at the same time, I couldn't find the queen, but found a lot of queen cells, and on my last inspection found that they too have a new queen. I now have two functioning hives, so am happy with that.

[@simplytopbarbeekeeping2107]

My first walk away split, I saw the queen and decided to put her in the new hive. I later found out that that is a good thing to do because it makes the new hive start off a lot better and grow. Since then my only problem is I can’t always find the queen. I hope you have a good Bee season and are able to harvest many pounds of honey.

[@ASimpleLifewithChrisTara]

We know nothing about bees so thank you for sharing....

[@brucemoffatt]

Like Rob said it will keep them happy if you cover the gap when you take out a bar. You're defs doing the right thing with water instead if smoke I think. I'm moving over to top bar from Lang so I'm using wax starter strips in a straight groove in each bar. I'll let you know how that goes. You're well ahead of me though, so please keep the vids and info coming. Cheers, Bruce in Largs, SA

[@DuckPondsFarm]

I think the wax strip will give you straighter comb that what I'm getting. I'm going to try some different top bar styles I think to see what different results I get.

[@brucemoffatt]

I've now finished building my second tbh in readiness for Spring. I've got five Lang hives and last Spring I got a lot of calls to catch swarms. Oh I've also built a seven bar swarm catcher tbh nuc. I'm not sure how it will end up by the end of summer. I may sell off my Lang hives and go to tbh for all of my bees. The amount of gear in my shed for Lang beekeeping is getting ridiculous :)

[@JimLaddie]

Thanks

[@nabilnabilos5858]

Smoke IS not good but water IS life .

[@fishmut]

Oh please ,Absolute rubbish , smoke has been used for thousands of years on bees to harvest honey. i would like to see you harvest wild bee colony honey with out it , that should be entertaining to say the least.

[@marinvidovic763]

Dont forget - SMOKE is asociated with lighting it ... and in a climat like AUSTRALIA - it may in a split of a sec. Turn into HUGE disaster. Water is much much safer - I think !