>Chris,
>
>I have to start this by saying that I have no Top Bar Hives myself.  I
>am planning to start one or two next spring.  I think that the width of
>the top bars is critical so that bee space will not be violated.  Jim
>Satterfield has posted that the width for Apis Mellifera must be 35 mm,
>or 1-3/8".  That is the width of fully drawn comb plus bee space.  I
>think that if you went narrower, your combs may not be deep enough and
>if wider, they may build more burr/brace comb.  Again, that's just my
>opinion.  Joel or Jim??
>
>Cheers,
>Kevin Palm
>Grafton, Ohio
> ----------
 
In the top-bar hives I have used, I stuck to 1 3/8" spacing in the brood
chamber.  In the 6" deep "supers" I used fixed supports (dowels) spaced at
1.5 inches and coated with wax on the underside. (Note: those hives used
top bars with bee space between them (spaced) and were supered on top like
a regular hive.)
 
SO I don't know about varying the spacing in long tbh's.  In a frame hive
you can space the combs a bit wider in the brood chamber (i.e., use 9
frames instead of 10). In that case the combs are already constructed and
the bees haven't much of a choice.
 
 With top bars only, and the bees building new, natural combs, they might
not respect wider spacing, and you could end up with odd or cross-connected
combs. (?).   The 1 3/8" spacing seems to be fine.  FWIW