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The beginner hive: Langstroth or top bar?

I have a definite opinion on this subject, although I don’t know if it’s completely justified. I’ve managed hives in both types of equipment, both at home and at the state prison where I used to teach beekeeping. It seems to me that, for a beginner, the best option will depend on the individual, the location, the purpose, and the beekeeper’s ability to fabricate equipment. Let’s start by running through some of the issues.

About Langstroth hives:

  • Here in the states, Langstroths are fairly uniform in size and shape. Okay, there are some annoying variations from one manufacturer to the next but, for the most part, you can make one piece of equipment work with another. This consistency means you can buy equipment used or on sale, and you will be able to use it with your existing set-up.
  • There are many pieces of “bee furniture” available for the two most common types of Langstroth hive—the 10-frame and the 8-frame configuration. By “furniture” I mean honey supers, comb honey equipment, feeders, queen excluders, pollen traps, propolis traps, bottom boards, slatted racks, inner covers, outer covers, feeder rims, gabled roofs, double screen boards, screened bottom boards, escape boards, fume boards—just about any management tool you can think of.
  • Langstroths are rectangular and stack and pack easily. If you have multiple hives that you must move, there’s nothing like a Langstroth. They also come apart in neat pieces that are easy to lift—at least easy compared to a top-bar hive (TBH).
  • Langstroths are designed to maximize honey production and minimize drone production. However, you can override this design feature by using foundationless frames in your Langstroth hive. In other words, you have the choice.
  • Some specialty endeavors—such as queen rearing, pollen collection, or propolis collection—are much easier in a Langstroth, mostly because of the readily available equipment.

About top-bar hives:

  • Although top-bar hives have been around for a long time, here in the states they are relatively new. They have no standard dimensions, nor do they have interchangeable parts. People generally buy them from small manufacturers or they build their own. If you are handy with woodworking tools, this is easy and fun. If you are not, it can mean you are at the mercy of someone else to make the extra parts you want.
  • Top-bar hives are often bulky and awkward to move around, and they are usually quite long and large. I had three roofs built for my own TBH before I got one I could actually handle by myself.
  • After six years, I have never taken any honey from by TBH. Yes, this is probably due to my own shortcomings as a top-bar hive beekeeper, but I find it easy to remove honey from a Langstroth and uncomfortably subjective to take it from a TBH. In other words, I have so much trouble determining how much honey to leave for the bees in the TBH that I end up leaving all of it.
  • I don’t have all the equipment I’d like to have for my TBH because I haven’t gotten around to making it or I haven’t envisioned a good design.
  • I have never figured out an effective way to raise queens in a TBH largely because it is difficult to sequester the active queen from the rest of the colony. I can see how to do it in theory, but the practicality is another issue.
  • All that said, my top-bar bees absolutely thrive. I have used my TBH as a source for bees, queen cells, larvae, and shook swarms—and still the thing bubbles over with healthy honey bees.

In my opinion your choice of hive has a lot to do with your ultimate goal. If you want a simple, inexpensive hive to pollinate your garden, I see no problem with a TBH. If you want to raise queens, go with a Langstroth. If you want the lowest possible start-up cost, go with a TBH. If you want to maximize honey production, go with a Langstroth. If a little bit of honey is good enough, start with a TBH. If you don’t own a saw or a hammer, stick with a Langstroth. If you like fabricating your own equipment, you could go with either.

Still, I think it is easier to manage bees in a Langstroth. Whenever someone asks my opinion, I recommend the Langstroth for beginners and, at least for now, I’m sticking with that. Your opinion is welcome.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Drones just love a good top-bar hive.
Drones just love a good top-bar hive.

Wednesday wordphile: bee space

Bee space is a passageway 1/4- to 3/8-inches wide (6-10 mm) that bees use for moving throughout the hive. In 1851 the Reverend L. L. Langstroth realized that spaces narrower than this were treated like cracks and filled with propolis. Spaces wider than this were treated like construction zones–bees donned their hardhats and filled the areas with burr comb.

Bees–being a little neurotic–like to have their passageways just large enough to fit through: no more, no less. And they never build tunnels through their comb. Every bee, following the unwritten rule, walks around the edges of comb to get to the other side.

Langstroth made good use of this information when he designed his now-famous hive. In order to make the frames moveable, he designed all the areas above, below, and around the combs to fall within the tolerance of bee space. He knew that if he could prevent the combs from being cemented to the hive–or to each other–the frames could be removed, inspected, and replaced.

Many other successful hives have been developed over the years, but they all rely on the concept of bee space to make them work. And as any beekeeper knows, you violate this rule at your own peril. Leave out a frame–or a top bar–for a week and you will have a mess on your hands.

Almost any time you find burr comb, brace comb, cross comb, or propolis seals mucking up the interior of a hive, it is due to a violation of bee space. One of the most common sources of error occurs when equipment purchased from different manufacturers is mixed. Although the pieces seem to fit, in truth, there is often enough difference to give the bees an opportunity for creative engineering.

Yet another take on follower boards

After making some Langstroth brood boxes with nine frames and two follower boards (in positions one and eleven) I began to think that it would be easier to make a ten-frame Langstroth into an eight-frame Langstroth by putting follower boards in positions one and ten. In this way you could use two standard Langstroth frames and fill them with Masonite to use as your followers. This method has several advantages:

  • The follower boards would be easier to make. Instead of having to divide a frame lengthwise, you could use the whole thing.
  • A full brood box would be lighter with just eight brood frames instead of ten. Using this system, the weight of a full ten-frame brood box with follower boards would be similar to that of a full eight-frame brood box without follower boards.
  • You gain some of the benefits of an eight-frame brood box (chiefly lighter weight) without sacrificing compatibility between eight-frame and ten-frame equipment.
  • You gain all the advantages of having follower boards (a place for bees to congregate, easy to remove frames, insulation in winter) while still having a conventional shape in your brood boxes. (In other words, your ten-frame slatted rack will work perfectly even though you have two follower boards.)
  • Because eight-frame equipment has become very common, we know that a hive can thrive in that configuration.

The downside is that a large hive, let’s say one with three deeps, will contain only 24 instead of 30 frames of bees. However, this would be the same if you had three eight-frame deeps with no follower boards, so I suspect it’s not much of an issue.

Rusty

How to make follower boards for a Langstroth hive

Here is one method of making follower boards for a Langstroth hive (also known as dummy boards). I made these for a deep brood box, but you can make them for any size box using the same method.

1. Start by measuring your frames from top to bottom and from side bar to side bar. Measure from the outside of each piece of wood to the outside of the opposite piece, but exclude the ears on the the top bar.

Measure the frames using the outside dimensions.
Measure the frames using the outside dimensions.

2. Select a regular top bar and cut it in half lengthwise.

Cut a top bar in half lengthwise.
Cut a top bar in half lengthwise.

3. Cut two pieces of masonite or other thin material according to the measurements of your frame. Also cut 4 small pieces of wood from scrap. (I show eight pieces in the photo but you only need four for a pair of follower boards.) The wood I used was the wedge from a wedged top bar. My pieces measure 3/16″ x 1/2″ x 4″ (0.5 cm x 1.25 cm x 4 cm). The length and width are not important but the thickness provides part of your bee space.

Cut two pieces of masonite and four spacers.
Cut two pieces of masonite and four spacers.

4. Center the masonite along the cut side of the top bars, lining up the top edges.

Make sure the masonite is centered along the top bar.
Make sure the masonite is centered along the top bar.

5. Fasten the masonite with a brad gun or stapler.

Fasten the masonite to the top bar.
Fasten the masonite to the top bar.

6. Fasten the spacers to the side of the masonite without the top bar.

Fastern the spacers to the masonite.
Fastern the spacers to the masonite.

7. The follower boards are now complete. Here is a view of the complete board on the top bar side.

Follower board showing top bar side.
Follower board showing top bar side.

8. Here is a view of the complete board on the spacer side.

Follower board showing the spacer side.
Follower board showing the spacer side.

9. Here is the completed deep brood box with nine frames and two follower boards. The spacing works best if the top bar side goes against the walls of the box. The spacer side lines up with the adjacent frame.

Follower boards in place.
Follower boards in place.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

What is a wired frame?

Beekeepers who use Langstroth-style equipment and preformed beeswax foundation often wire their frames. You’ve probably noticed that the side bars of these frames have a series of holes punched through them. These holes are used to guide and support the wire as it goes back and forth across the interior of the frame.

The purpose of wiring is threefold. It keeps the foundation from collapsing or sagging before the bees have drawn out the comb. Secondly, it keeps the honeycomb from breaking out of the frame when it’s subjected to the centrifugal force inside an extractor. It also helps to hold frames together even as they age.

A single piece of wire is nailed to the frame on one end. This wire then goes through a hole and straight across the frame to the hole directly opposite. From there the wire is lead down along the side bar to the next hole, goes through, and then is led straight across the frame in the other direction. This is repeated for every pair of holes until you end up with a series of equally spaced parallel wires. The number of holes varies with the depth of the frame. Four pairs, three pairs, and two pairs are all common. When the wiring is complete the end of the wire is nailed to the frame.

Alternatively, the wire may crisscross the frame from upper left to lower right, then run up the outside of the right side bar, through the top hole, and then crisscross in the opposite direction.

Whichever method is used, the wire must be kept tight. It should make a sound when you pluck it—sort of like a musical instrument. There are different ways of getting it tight. One way is to place the frame in a device that pulls down on the bottom bar. This action pulls the side bars closer together. Then you wire the frame and fasten the wire. When you release the bottom bar from the device, the side bars pull apart again and tighten the wire in the process.

After the frame is wired, the foundation is installed. Then the wire is embedded into the foundation by pressing the wire with a tool that looks sort of like a pastry cutter, or by passing an electric current through the wire which causes the foundation to melt around it.

Because a really tight wire will sometimes cut into the wood, metal eyelets are often inserted into the holes before the wiring is begun. A well-wired frame is a work of art—symmetrical, tight, and durable.

Having said that, I think wiring frames is the most miserable, frustrating, exasperating, and infuriating task in all of beekeeping. It causes me to utter words I didn’t know I knew. With that in mind, I will follow up with “How to Survive Wiring a Frame.” Look for it in the near future!

Rusty