Super on TBH

[Joe D]

I have been thinking about putting a super on my TBH.  I made a new bar with no guide.  Drilled a hole in the middle of it then routered  the hole to about 5 inches long.  Replace a frame in the hive with it and place super with telescoping lid on hive.  The bar with the hole is in the middle, of the super.  It was a 10 frame super with drawn comb.




Joe

[BeeMaster2]

Let us know how it works out.
Did you put the bar with the hole in it in the middle of the brood, the honey frames, next to the last honey frame or several empty bars away?
Jim

[Joe D]

The super is close to the honey end, the bar with the hole is three bars from where the super starts, toward the front of the hive.  There are honey frames, then I put an empty bar and then the one with the hole, then there are some more bars of honey.  They have some empty frames, just thought I would fix it where I could put supers on and maybe use most of the TBH for the brood and their stores.




Joe

[BeeMaster2]

Thanks Joe.
Having a top bar hive provides easy access to the brood, for queen rearing, having supers makes for easy extraction. If this works out you can have both. Keep us up dated.
Jim

[Joe D]

Sure thing Jim.  This is a real nice colony also, very gentle, lots of bees and have been really going to town building and filling the hive.  When I got all the stuff ready to change the lid, TB and super there was a thunderstorm coming.  I didn't take time to fill and lite the smoker.  Went on out there with shorts on, I did have a sweat shirt and hood and gloves, inspected where the super would go to and where the honey was.  Moved some of the frames around, put the one with slot in it in, the new lid and super and it's lid and didn't even have one bee to buss me.  No stings not even a buss by.   This hive had a Cordovan queen year before last.  She swarmed last year without laying a queen cell, I could find another Cordovan close.  The only queen I found close was a two year old Russian queen, she has done real well.



Joe

[BeeMaster2]

It's nice having gentle hives. One of the gentlest hives that I have had was an open air hive. Didn't need a smoker to work in the hive.