Thanks for replying. Hope you do well with your top bar hive in my location it's not too hot and it's not too cold I've been pretty fortunate with them. Since I just have five hives they work well for me. Plenty of honey for family and friends.

Ralf thanks for the comments I totally agree. You might want to check out one of my last videos here about top bar and layens hives. I’ve also found them to be very interesting to use. Hope all is going well in Australia. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qrKCe9eB17m-c6c.html

Thanks for the advice. I’ll give it a try. How do you phase out old brood comb? I have one hive starting it’s 5th season, and it’s usually full of something making it hard to remove comb.

I agree, I would like to mention since I made this video, I watched a guy down in Australia. He would put a quarter inch dowel rod in the center of his top bars, and it would hang down about 6 to 7 inches in hoping to add support for the Comb. I did this this past year, and it seemed to help quite a bit on the honey bars. Will probably add dowels to a lot more.

Thank you very good advice.

I’ve never had trouble carrying a short distance. But you are right driving long distance over bumpy road can do some damage to fresh comb. I have found it helps to keep the long length of the hive parallel to the tailgate of truck.

I have a Layens hive For some reason the queen has never ventured that far

That’s a depends on answer. I usually catch swarms to fill empty hives. Early big swarms will build up and fill a lot of the hive it’s first year,and I’ve always been able to take a couple of bars of honey it’s first year. I’ve also had a hive swarm twice early and late in the season and only harvest a couple bars. The size of my bars were built on Phil chandler’s design 17.5 inch bars 1.5 inches wide. Honey bars average 5+ lbs. I probably take 20 to 30 lbs off a hive a year. I could do more not a commercial honey producer, so I leave plenty for winter and sometimes take leftovers in spring. Wax would be a guess, 1 to 2 lbs?

You might want to watch my video episode #46 on my top bar design. After building 3 designs this works best for me. You might get some ideas. I love my top bars and how they work. Also episode #62 on my layens build. I’m interested in seeing how they will work this year. Top bars are easier and cheaper to build than layens but both have their positives and negatives. If you are a wood worker you’ll have no problem and will come up with your own better designs. One thing I’ve learned on either hive you want your bars to be 1.5 inches wide no less, works best for bees building their own foundation less comb. Wish you well on your builds.

@@simplytopbarbeekeeping2107 Thank you. I'll check out both of those videos.

If you are not a commercial bee keeper top bar or layens is the way to go.