Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => TBH, Warre, and Other Alternative Hives => Topic started by: Scott Derrick on October 10, 2014, 09:22:23 am
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This last year I decided to move away from Langs and go primarily to TBH. No I'm not a Lang hater. I was telling Iddee yesterday that I have been removing bees for about 10 years now and the majority (80%) of the removals I do are from between floors of home in the floor joist tunnels. I rarely, if ever find a weak / sick hive in nature unless a human has come contact with it. Realizing this I decide to put a my "info" to the test. Now I don't treat my bee. I also don't feed them sugar water. I do however bring home comb from the cutouts I do and allow them to clean it up. That is, the comb that I don't mount. I try really hard to allow the bees do live an die on their own without human intervention with chemicals. I will smash or vac hive beetles for sure!
This year I put in 4 TBH. I wanted to compare them to my Langs. All I can tell you is that the TBH I put swarms in this year are doing better than any hives I've had. I even split one of them a couple of times. I did lose one because the queen was just plain weak and they dwindled on their own to nothing. I was hoping they'd create their own queen but it just didn't happen. Of course this colony had a hard time finding the exit / entrance on the TBH. It took them about two weeks and some prodding. They were my "special needs bees" for the season.
Now all that being said, I've noticed the numbers many times are great but honey stores can be a bit low. Most of my TBH swarmed at least twice maybe three times. I actually allow this because I'm trying to help repopulate. I'm assuming this is part of the reason they've been low on stores but I'm not exactly sure.
Just wondering what everyone else is seeing and how they think of them compared to langs.
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blueblood keeps both tbh and langs. was curious as to what his thoughts would be.
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I think they are awesome. Both of my TBH wintered over last season and you know, it was a long hard winter. They are my healthiest hives also. I too, believe that allowing them to build their own comb allows them to be this way.
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I actually want to go all TBH. I will finish my transition this year. I have been using a TBH made from plywood and CNC cut. It actually doesn't have any screws or hardware holding it together. It's all wedges and tannins. You can see a video of it here. This particular one is made from MDF and is only a prototype. I have 7 other right now made from oak and birch plywood. I want to stain and urethane them this winter.
http://youtu.be/xTfvjcEchzs?list=UU-o_vexp56dyciBbB8raOQA