Using just top bars in national supers

[pargyle]

I might well be a fool, but not as big a fool as I would have been to take a raincheck during a honeyflow due to a lack of frames.

Well ... as a hobbyist you can quickly knock up few new frames - I don't know anyone in their right mind that would just buy top bars when they are more expensive than buying the full set in the sales !

If I were a beefarmer and I got myself into the situation where I had enough boxes to cope with a flow but had not made the frames up (even unwaxed) I would be kicking my own arse from here to Shropshire for my lack of planning and foresight.

The reality is that if there is so much urgency to getting boxes out then, with just top bars, they are going to use up a lot of that flow drawing out free comb and there's no guarantee that they will be able to fill and cap it anyway. Plus ... if you put a box full of just top bars out the bees will not follow the top bars - they will build free comb to their own design - potentially a complete mess.

Me ? If I was a beefarmer and got myself into a situation like this I'd bite the bullet and pay up for some ready made waxed frames - worst case scenario £5 a frame - once they are drawn and filled - say 3lbs of actual honey spun out - even at wholesale prices of say £4 a lb ... £7 gross profit per frame and you have drawn super frames ready for the next time panic sets it. Of course, if you get £7 or £8 a pound for your honey it's even more !

You are not looking at it from a business angle .... Planning is the key to good business - making the RIGHT decision when the plan goes belly up can make the difference between profit and disaster.

 

[rolande]

You are not looking at it from a business angle .... Planning is the key to good business - making the RIGHT decision when the plan goes belly up can make the difference between profit and disaster.

Well, I can't speak for @Curly green finger's on this specific point.

As I mentioned before on this forum, I'd lost pretty much everything due to a previous business going badly wrong and was living in a tent with no cash to invest and the knowledge that no one would touch me with regards to a loan but I refused to join the benefits treadmill and kept going. My circumstances were, as such, very different to curley's but the need to get boxes on was the same. Simple case of a friend ripping some simple bars on his table saw out of scrap. Do they follow the bars? Maybe, maybe not, generally a bit of both. I stand by what I say, if circumstances don't allow the frames to be purchased then you have to do something.

One last point, in curley's case, assuming that he already has a large stock of drawn super combs there was a very obvious solution where simple bars would have all had a reasonable chance of being drawn near straight although the work load would have admittedly increased but as I assume he's talking of a relatively small number of boxes I'm sure he could have found the time

 

[user 20297]

Well ... as a hobbyist you can quickly knock up few new frames - I don't know anyone in their right mind that would just buy top bars when they are more expensive than buying the full set in the sales !

If I were a beefarmer and I got myself into the situation where I had enough boxes to cope with a flow but had not made the frames up (even unwaxed) I would be kicking my own arse from here to Shropshire for my lack of planning and foresight.

The reality is that if there is so much urgency to getting boxes out then, with just top bars, they are going to use up a lot of that flow drawing out free comb and there's no guarantee that they will be able to fill and cap it anyway. Plus ... if you put a box full of just top bars out the bees will not follow the top bars - they will build free comb to their own design - potentially a complete mess.

Me ? If I was a beefarmer and got myself into a situation like this I'd bite the bullet and pay up for some ready made waxed frames - worst case scenario £5 a frame - once they are drawn and filled - say 3lbs of actual honey spun out - even at wholesale prices of say £4 a lb ... £7 gross profit per frame and you have drawn super frames ready for the next time panic sets it. Of course, if you get £7 or £8 a pound for your honey it's even more !

You are not looking at it from a business angle .... Planning is the key to good business - making the RIGHT decision when the plan goes belly up can make the difference between profit and disaster.

Isn't the point here that @Curly green finger's is experiencing an embarrassment of success with his beekeeping, to the extent that, as always, he's using his noddle and thinking outside the box.
He's a grafter, and I don't just mean he produces a lot of queen bees. I applaud and wish him well with his venture and I'm disappointed that some people always seem to be negating and sarcastically talking him down on this " great" forum.

 

[Curly green finger's]

what is confusing me is, you seem to have plenty of top bars.
so where did the side and bottom bars go?

I imagine that @Curly green finger's is using strip wood for bars. Sound enough idea if we think that one full box so fitted (and the added labour) might pay for a couple of hundred second quality frames next year but an empty box, unused due to lack of frames won't pay for anything next year. As Norman Rice wrote in Queens' Land, don't let the lack of the proper kit get in the way of a good idea.

Well, I can't speak for @Curly green finger's on this specific point.

As I mentioned before on this forum, I'd lost pretty much everything due to a previous business going badly wrong and was living in a tent with no cash to invest and the knowledge that no one would touch me with regards to a loan but I refused to join the benefits treadmill and kept going. My circumstances were, as such, very different to curley's but the need to get boxes on was the same. Simple case of a friend ripping some simple bars on his table saw out of scrap. Do they follow the bars? Maybe, maybe not, generally a bit of both. I stand by what I say, if circumstances don't allow the frames to be purchased then you have to do something.

One last point, in curley's case, assuming that he already has a large stock of drawn super combs there was a very obvious solution where simple bars would have all had a reasonable chance of being drawn near straight although the work load would have admittedly increased but as I assume he's talking of a relatively small number of boxes I'm sure he could have found the time

5 super boxes mate, and I’m enjoying watching what’s happening.
Apologies I didn’t mean to quote all of the posts

 

[Garry R]

You're right...no-one ever became a millionaire by coming up a new idea.

What about the inventor of the catseye road kit who had the bright idea having seen a cat coming towards him reflecting light from its eyes. Apparently if it had been walking away from him he would have invented the pencil sharpener........

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What about the inventor of the catseye road kit who had the bright idea having seen a cat coming towards him reflecting light from its eyes. Apparently if it had been walking away from him he would have invented the pencil sharpener........

but someone else did - and invented a handy little gadget to hold/hang tea towels from

 

[PeaBee]

Aye either for chunk or finishing of on the heather and crushing to make a natural heather blend.

I’ve got a long handled knife to cut the comb from the boxes if needs be.

Are you going to transport them half full to the heather or do you not need to move to get heather?

 

[Curly green finger's]

Are you going to transport them half full to the heather or do you not need to move to get heather?

Yes i do plan to move them to heather they are single brood colony’s

 

[PeaBee]

Yes i do plan to move them to heather they are single brood colony’s

I would have thought transporting bees with half full supers was risky enough, transporting half full supers on top bars has potential to end badly.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Saw this thread and remembered I made my top bars to fit into national boxes. (Recommended by Phil Chandler so you can get colonies building in a national box before moving into TBH. Thought I'd use top bar hives due to back problem but things improved.) The top bar hives have been sitting ignored by the bees for 3?4? years.

Run out of super frames so put some of the bars at the side of drawn frames. Swarm that arrived 4 weeks earlier needed a super.

They've drawn out the frames but joined them to the front of the box and to the side where there is a big gap. They've built from a triangular bead along middle of bar.

I hope your experiment works, Mark @Curly green finger's .