Differences between a Long Lang and a TBH?

[Newbee]

LOL! Thanks Iddee, I've been reminding the wife that she's pretty lucky I still have it at this age! Though the fore-head's turning into a 6 or a 7-head lately... for the most part it's still there, and in it's original color. She's a lucky girl! I could be fat and bald! LOL!

I kid b/c I think my wife looks better than the day we got married, and tell her that all the time. 

Is there really that big of a difference? I don't mean to question your opinion, as my handle implies, I'm the Newbie!

I relate back to my other hobby, which I feel very confident speaking about, and there are many ways to be successful, some I think are easier, but other folks have done just dandy (I _still_ reference the guy I knew that kept a gorgeous hard coral tank on tap-water, UNHEARD OF! EVERYONE uses RO/DI filtered water, EVERYONE!) I guess I just don't know enough or understand things well enough yet, so these back and forth conversations are useful to me, I appreciate you taking the time to educate me and share!

What do you think it is that makes the Lang-style hives more forgiving, the verticality? Are the bee's that much more comfortable, more natural to them? At this point when buying commercial Nuc's I suppose it's not quite appropriate to worry about 'natural' conditions, as they've been bred and managed for so long the natural tendencies are no longer very dominant (aka they're domesticated).

Thanks again for the back and forth, I appreciate you sharing the knowledge.

- K

[iddee]

Frames with foundation are spaced evenly apart in a measured distance. The bees are forced to draw comb in straight lines.
TBH is open for cross comb, curved comb, half moon comb, etc. Lift a lang frame and tilt it to the sun to see the eggs in the bottom of the cells. Then lift a TB and tilt it to see what it's like to have honey comb and bees all over your feet. Transport one frame from a lang a few miles to add to another hive. Then do the same with a TB.

Now add that to the horizontal/vertical argument and what do you have?

[Lburou]

@Lee:

Where are the entries to the top bar langstroth boxes?  It's a cool looking hive.

Lazy, I put five (5/8 inch) holes on one side, with a permanent robbing screen in place.

[Lburou]

A medium super full of honey is closer to 60 lbs., and it is 11 pieces, not just one. If you had a weight lifting set, would you carry it all at once?

FWIW, an 8 frame deep will weigh about the same (as 10 frame medium) and you can keep one sized frame to fit anywhere in the hive.  :-)

Move a frame at a time from hive to truck. It only takes one extra box.

That is exactly how I do it.  Only takes an extra hive body and a bit of time.  :-)

[Lburou]

Placed two colonies of bees in one horizontal hive this summer.  Enjoyed it!

Added an 8 frame deep super over each end and a top feeder between them.



There was a queen excluder or divider under the medial edge of each super, confining each queen to one end of the hive (a divider is shown).  The bees built up, not in the middle frames that were common to both hives when an excluder was in place allowing worker access to the center portion of the horizontal box.  They shared the feeder though.



So, the bees did fine in the horizontal hive, but did build up when faced with an option to go horizontally.  Below is the fitting stage of my project:

Then, I put another box around that.  It will be good for wintering.

[Ray]

I attempted to raise bees (my first year) in homemade long-langs. It wasn't pretty. I built it out of 3/4 plywood and the sides bowed enough to allow the frames to slip into the hive.
If I had it to do over- I'd built the Beast out of 2 INCH OAK.