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Langstroth Type Supers on A KTB Hive?

 
Posts: 104
Location: Rutledge, MO
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http://mistressbeek.com/2009/06/01/langstroth-top-bar-a-very-confused-bee-hive/

Thoughts?
 
Posts: 186
Location: 7b desert southern Idaho
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I built my top bar hives to fit my langstrum box's. Thinking it would be nice to have them interchangeable. But I ended up with large top bars hives. I still don't have bees for the top bars. I'm hoping to get a split or swarm next year. I'm half thinking splitting the top bar into two hive. Then honey supering them. Might try one super with top bars and one with frames. If they survive the winter....
 
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Location: woodland, washington
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they're certainly not the first folks to try something like that out. it isn't terribly appealing to me, not for purist or aesthetic reasons, but for more practical reasons. why not keep Langstroth and top bar hives instead of mashing them up into one that requires all sorts of fudging?

the general nature of horizontal top bar hives is that they need fussing over. when the nectar is flowing and a colony is large, honey needs to be harvested to prevent honey-binding. that doesn't personally strike me as a big deal. these hives are also designed so that frequent harvest is not nearly as invasive as it would be in a Langstroth hive, because the nest environment is largely maintained even with the roof off. the standard design also avoids empty space above the colony, which is not something the bees are adapted to encounter and reliably affects their wellbeing negatively.

a goofy and maybe fun experiment, and no egregious harm is being done, but it's not something I would recommend adding to your management strategy.
 
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