At 09:40 PM 12/11/96 -0900, you wrote:
 
>> Still I'm not sure of all the specs.
>> What makes these hives so great?
 
> They are a low tech alternative to the Langstroth.
 
Some historical background may help people understand where a TBH fits.
 
A few years ago a beekeeper (Athol Desmond) from Zimbabwe visited us here
in Sydney and told us about the TBH.
 
He explained that traditionally, African peasants kept bees in hollow logs.
As you can imagine, "managing" a colony in a hollow log is not very
practical.  Ideally they would all be persuaded to switch to the Langstroth
hive that we all know so well.  However the Langstroth hive id too expensive
for many of these people.  The TBH was developed and promoted as a compromise.
 
 
The advantages of the TBH are
 
1) Impoverished beekeepers can make one at very little cost from whatever
bits and pieces are available.
 
2) They allow an acceptable level of hive management.
 
 
As I recall, there are only 2 important parameters.
 
1) The width of the top bars.  When placed in th hive, adjacent top bars
touch each other and thus create a "solid" lid.  The honey comb hangs down
from the center of these bars.  Consequently, the width of these bars must
the thickness of one honey comb plus one bee space.
 
2) The slope of the sides of the main box.  These hives are wider across the
top than they are across the bottom.  The sides are sloped about 30 degrees
from the vertical.  This is the same slope that bees use when they build
honey comb out in the open.  Using that slope in the hive discourages the
bees from attaching their combs to the side of the box.
 
If you make the box as deep as a typical "free form" honey comb, it should
be just right.
 
The entrance is at one end only.  Brood is raised near the entrance and
honey stores at the other end.  The beekeeper normally opens the hive by
starting from the back.
 
After he explained how the hive was made, I suggested several design
improvements.  Athol Desmond acknowledged that these suggestions would make
the hive more efficient to work with but they also made it too expensive for
the normal African peccant.
 
With a Langstroth, we enlarge the hive by adding more boxes on top.  With a
TBH, I suppose you could extend horizontally from the back.
 
 
 
Regards
 
Chris Allen