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As I was moving deep supers this weekend, trying to keep bees, ants, and other pests from invading them, I realized one of the reasons I love TBH’s so much. I think it comes down to minimalism, yes minimalism and the lack of accruement needed to sustain a colony in the tbh is one of the reasons I actually love TBH Apiculture. I don’t need to transport supers, frames, or any other hive equipment around to maintain the tbh colony. Thus I don’t need to store Deeps, shallows, mediums, frames, foundation, extractors, queen excluders, bottoms, tops, inner covers, entrance reducers, and multiple different hand tools to assist me when I manipulate a colony.
I can get in my little 41 mpg Yaris drive out to the TBH apiary get out, grab my trusty bread knife and my jacket veil combo open the tbh do some manipulations close the colonies up and drive away (smoke is optional). I usually don’t even have to go through the entire colony to get an understanding of how the colony is doing. I Start at the rear of the colony and only move forward as needed to ascertain what I need to do if anything next. It is such a pleasure for me and unobtrusive to the colony that we both seem to stay relaxed. If I need to make space I simply slide a top bar towards the rear and add unused top bar from the rear of the colony.
Harvesting excess honey is just as easy, I simply take a small bucket with me when I am harvesting and cut the comb off the top bar into the bucket place the lid on the bucket, replace the top bar and move on. I have found that the crush and strain method of extraction is actually easier and less work for me than using extracting equipment , when I consider the cleanup and storage needed to uncap and extract.
Well I better jump off my soap box today and get to work cleaning out a storage spot for my supers (at least until I am totally TBH’s).
