Top-bar hive in an Istrian heatwave: comb collapse lessons and the harvest-as-you-go rhythm

We hit 36C this week and I got the top-bar keeper's summer tax: one fresh comb, heavy with nectar, folded off its bar in the afternoon heat. Seven years in and it still happens if I get complacent. What I've learned keeps collapses rare: full shade from midday on (my hives sit under an oak now, non-negotiable), ventilation without breaking the bees' propolis seal plan, and — most important — never letting new white comb get long and honey-laden in a heatwave. Fresh comb is soft; old dark comb with a few brood cycles in it is structurally a different material. Which is why mid-summer top-bar life is a harvest-as-you-go rhythm: I pull one or two ripe combs at a time every week or so through the flow, crush and strain the same evening, and give the bars back. No extractor, no stacking supers, just a steady trickle of honey and short combs that can't lever themselves off. Different pace from my framed-hive friends drowning in supers right now, and honestly I prefer it.