Starting a Top-bar Hive With a Swarm
A new top-bar hive colony can be initiated with bees captured from a swarm (for example, http://www2.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/tbmgmt2.htm). In fact, top-bar hives are sometimes advocated for use as swarm lure boxes.
Worker bees in a swarm have gorged on honey before leaving their former home and so have sufficient energy to generate a great deal of new comb shortly after settling down in a top-bar hive. As with all colonies initiated from swarms, however, one is seldom certain as to the quality of the queen or the level of disease or parasites that have been brought from the original hive.