Scott Ball wrote:  "I'm considering setting up a double colony, single story long hive with colonies divided by two QEs and honey production in between the QEs. I might make it adjustable so that I can expand the brood area and decrease the honey production area by removing honey frames, moving the QEs and adding brood frames. I'm tired of so much heavy lifting!"



This seems to be an unnecessarily complicated method.  I have had a gradually increasing number of top bar hives over the last 20 years.  They're not as productive as stacking boxes but, on the other hand, much of the crop is naturally drawn comb honey which sells for twice the price!  Everything is at waist height and the heaviest thing you lift is one bar of honeycomb.  My design is a half cylinder made out of recycled pallet planks. This enables the bees to draw comb in their preferred, natural, catenary shape. The diameter of the half cylinder is (in the UK) 17" to match the standard frames to make it easier to take out a few bars for a nucleus etc.


The entrance is at the southern end and the bees generally (bees do nothing invariably) rear their brood at the front and put their stores at the rear.  Normally I don't feed my bees but take my share of the honey when the first Spring flowers (willow and dandelion) are blooming.  Thus I know that what I take is truly surplus to their requirements and is not partially recycled supermarket sugar.


I find that the bees in top bar hives are much better tempered than those in stacked boxes of conventional  hives.


Having also lots of conventional boxes and frames, I am considering doing the same as you and build/convert some to single storey long hives, but normally only with one colony in each. I might leave a corked hole at the rear and have a division board handy in case, for queen rearing/swarm control, it becomes desirable to split them temporarily.  In order to reduce the stress caused by a sudden blast of fresh air and blaze of light when a cover is taken off I will use cover cloths with rollers so that only one or two frames are exposed at a time.


Chris





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