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Author Topic: Dimensions of Wyatt Magnum's topbar hives  (Read 23745 times)

Offline ugcheleuce

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Dimensions of Wyatt Magnum's topbar hives
« on: February 21, 2014, 03:47:39 am »
Hello everyone

Does anyone here know what the dimensions of Wyatt Magnum's topbar hives are?  I'm curious about how it compares to the hives used by the other two or three most well-known topbar advocates.  What is the angle of his hive's sides, how high is the top above the floor, how wide is the floor, how wide is the top, and how long are these hives?  I don't have his book (yet... good intentions, though).

Thanks
Samuel
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Samuel Murray, Apeldoorn, Netherlands
3 hives in desperate need of requeening :-)

Offline ugcheleuce

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Re: Dimensions of Wyatt Mangum's topbar hives
« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2014, 04:44:51 pm »
Does anyone here know what the dimensions of Wyatt Mangum's topbar hives are?

I googled extensively and found an image of one of his hives taken directly from the side, with a reference measurement in the form of a queen cage, which I was able to identify and get the measurements for.  From this I was able to deduce that the Mangum hive's dimensions are approximately as follows:

top: 400 mm
bottom: 200 mm
height: 260 mm
angle: 69 degrees

This means that Mangum's hive has the most vertical sides of the latter-day big three (compare Chandler 65 deg, Crowder 61 deg), though still quite a bit less than those of old timers Hardison (77 deg) and Berube (79 deg).

To get the same comb area as 20 Illinois medium frames, you'd need the following number of bars from each one's hive: Crowder 18, Chandler 24, Mangum 22, Hardison 22, Berube 19.  Put differently, a 24-frame hive from each of these designs would yield the following volumes (in litres): Crowder 75, Chandler 57, Mangum 62, Hardison 63, Berube 70.

I compared 14 top-bar hive sizes (my criteria was that the person's plans must be mentioned in several places, and/or he must have run several hives for several years, or he must have published and have been quoted to a reasonable degree).  To get a 60 litre volume, the top-bar hive design that would require the highest number of frames is Corwin Bell's "golden section" hive (28 bars), followed closely by Chandler (27 bars).  The least number of bars required for 60 litres comes from Dennis Murell's design (14 bars) and the 50-degree oddity called the Kumasi "Ghana" hive (16 bars).  Gibb's Zambian hive design needs 18 bars for 60 litres.
--
Samuel Murray, Apeldoorn, Netherlands
3 hives in desperate need of requeening :-)

Offline HomeSteadDreamer

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Re: Dimensions of Wyatt Magnum's topbar hives
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2014, 11:49:46 am »
Just wanted to say welcome.  I see you found your Magnum measurements.  I love his book and Michael Bush.  I modified the TB from Magnum just a bit to allow supering gonna be trying that out on a really strong hive I have going. 

Nice to see another poster for TBH I like them alot.

Offline fruitveggirl

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Re: Dimensions of Wyatt Magnum's topbar hives
« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2014, 10:27:17 am »
You can find dimensions in inches in a post I wrote: happyhourtopbar.blogspot.com/search/label/Construction