TBH newish swarm. Polystyrene as a filler?

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

suavecarve

New Bee
Joined
Mar 10, 2012
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Location
Headley
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
2
Hi guys, I thought I d give a TBH a go and managed to get a small swarm 3 weeks ago and then went on holiday. Got back Saturday and was intrigued to see how they got on and they have 5 combs started with the first one halfway across but going right down to the bottom. My conundrum is there are potentially 26 combs which I would love to fill before the winter but they arent even going to get close. My theory is to fill as much as I can with polystyrene to fill up the gap so they dont have as much to warm up. Am i I on the right lines or jsut plain mad? Also how should I treat for varroa ? My theory on this one is to remove one of the closest bars to the combs, raise the roof up an inch and put the apiguard on that, or am i mad to do that ?
Advice is greatly appreciated.
 
.
You may use polyurethane foam or polystyrene board. They boath have serious problem:
Ants love to make their nest cavities into stuff.

.
 
They'll nibble away at it, I used some slabs to reduce a brood box for a small cast but covered in tin foil, worked until I snagged it during an inspection, next inspection - they'd dug out a cavity. But fine til snagged, just be careful
 
There is no need for polystyrene, you should have moveable follower boards with which you enclose the "occupied" section of the hive. As for "treatments" - many TBH owners don't treat, some use sugar dusting allied to regular mite counts, some use such things as Thymol
 
Last edited:
I would like to think you have your two follower boards reducing the space the bees are occupying you can then place some insulation on the outsides of the follower boards you can cut the insulation to the same shape of the follower boards or just fill the cavity.

I have Thymol in my TBH at the moment don’t know how effective it will be a bit of an experiment to be honest, the drop is low on this hive and it never received any treatments last year but it will be interesting if the Thymol works.

What I have done is to move one follower board creating a gap of three bars then place one of my fire logs on the mesh floor cut so it is just short of the bars and then I placed the Thymol treatment on the top of the log and then fitted three bars to close the hive. I was going to split the Thymol treatment and apply from both sides of the hive but settled for just the one side. If I get a reasonable drop I will treat from the other side with the 2nd treatment or split it over the two sides.
 
I would have thought the warmer the "follower boards" the better they would appreciate it but I am neither a TBH user nor a natural purist.

PH
 
I have :
insulated the side walls on all TBHs
Insulated the roof
laid wool/fibre carpet underlay on top of top bars.
Have a loosely fitting bottom board.

After that, insulated follower boards will help. Loads of celotex 25mm thick.. so after 1 mins cutting , job will be done.
 
Thanks guys. I didnt know about a follower board, there wasnt one with it when it came but it makes perfect obvious sense. I knew there must have been an easy answer so i ll make one out of some old OSB 18mm thick
 
Thanks guys. I didnt know about a follower board, there wasnt one with it when it came ...

I'd ask back where it came from.
I've been under the impression that it has to fit really exactly, and that diy builders were advised to make the follower boards first, and then build the hive to fit them ...
 
Hi all,
I have got two follower boards in my tbh and filled the no man's land with home made saw dust. First of all because the swarms are unrelated and I did not want them to smell eachother and secondly for winter insulation. The long term strategy is to unite in spring all being well.
 
I'd ask back where it came from.
I've been under the impression that it has to fit really exactly, and that diy builders were advised to make the follower boards first, and then build the hive to fit them ...


It came from Th***es (why does everyone put asterisks?) and I paid about 70 nicker and it took about 2 weeks to turn up!
 
It came from Th***es (why does everyone put asterisks?) and I paid about 70 nicker and it took about 2 weeks to turn up!

The forum strives to be free of "commercial influence", and the censor software automatically asterisks some words ...

T's are brilliant at customer service. Ring them up and ask whether you should have got a follower board (or a pair). Its just some accurately cut plywood.
Since T's version has the entrance distinctly to one end, just one follower board might be appropriate.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top