Top Bars In A National

Has anyone tried putting top bars in a standard supper to allow the bees to draw out comb in readiness for re-use in a new TBH?

Yes works fine. Provided the dimensions of the bars are interchangeable, or you use a bit of lateral thinking, you can start them off in super or BB. However, is there any point? Where then do you get the bees to put into your new TBH? If you are going to introduce a swarm, they are all revved up to go to produce comb.

Instead of a chop and crop you can just put top bars in your National BB, wait until they are full of brood, trim the comb, and put in to your TBH with bees, introduce a queen, or let them raise their own. Think it all through and you will see the possibilities are endless.

Personally I think it is best to put a new swarm in to start off your TBH

The idea was to get a swarm and thought having drawn comb may speed up the process of establishing a new hive.

just make the top bar hive to accept a few national frames
I housed a cast swarm in a tbh nuc, took just over a week before comb was built to accept pollen

another cast swarm in a 6 frame nuc, pollen within 3 days,

so frames are a good thing, but I wanted to use top bars, so built 2 of these from scrap timber

http://youtu.be/iz2UDxwydQg