Top Bar Beekeeping

countryboy

FYI:

For all who have considered it in the Northern Hemisphere, now is the time to think about putting a beehive or two in place. Next month or so is the time to hive bees if you want to capture the full production season and benefit the bees and your crops.

Google 'Top Bar Hive Plans' There are several versions that are free. I built two of these mid-Summer last year. Total cost was about $80 plus $60 for bees and two queens. They appear to have made it through the Winter though I was late getting them started and their honey stores were a little limited.

A few other plans use a mesh/screen for the bottom to allow dusting the bees with powdered sugar so they can clean mites off each other... Can't find those plans now, but feel they are better than the ones I originally used. Makes for a quick Saturday project and tons of interesting watching as they work like crazy!!

Over all, the top bar concept is a simple low maintenance plan that lets bees be bees with only a little interference for an occasional honey harvest.

CB

earthbound

I like it........ Keep us up to date with how the hive goes, I'd be interested to see how it goes.

countryboy

I'll get pics and post a little more about my two hives late this weekend. They were easy to build, simple to hive and best of all have a window in the side that I can 'check on the Bees' without opening the hive and disturbing them. They are not NO maintenance, but are very LOW maintenance.

More later!

CB

mikeym

countryboy wrote:

A few other plans use a mesh/screen for the bottom to allow dusting the bees with powdered sugar so they can clean mites off each other...
CB

Whoa that is awesome!

mikeym

That prompted me to search for that and I found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa_des ... al_methods

Thank you. I just learned something new.

countryboy

Glad I could help...

Truth is O know just enough about bees to bee dangerous... LOL! They have been loads of fun and an amazing experiment to watch. Looking forward to harvesting a bit of honey this year.

CB

countryboy

A couple pics of my top bar hives. Made these last year around July leaving a short amount of time to hive the bees and let them store up enough for Winter. still, seems they made it through just fine, though one hive has a very small population.

The hives are slightly different. The first I made is the longer hive. Later I read a little more and decided on a shorter version that is wider. Seems dimensions are not critical, though the angled sides (using the Golden Mean) seem to work best.

On placement, the larger hive gets more sun and therefore tends to be active earlier in the morning and sooner on cool days.. May move the other hive in the next couple days to a better location.

Attachment:

File comment: Shorter/wider of the two. Best placed reference the sun. Very active.

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Attachment:

File comment: Front and side of same hive. Have small notched board to choke entrance. Keeps them warmer and more prepared to defend themselves against honey thieves I encountered last Fall.

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Attachment:

File comment: Window in the side for checking on the hive without opening it. The goal, unlike commercial beekeeping, is to minimize intrusions in the hive. Watching the constant activity in warm weather is fascinating!

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One more pic in next post...

countryboy

Attachment:

File comment: The longer/narrower of the hives. The shade has limited the production, so I'll move to a better location soon.

DSCF0177sm.JPG [ 103.04 KiB | Viewed 2673 times ]

A fun and interesting hobby that helps strengthen the sagging bee population, encourages local pollinators and yields a bit of honey. Highly recommended...

Google 'top bar hive' and other key words like 'sustainable beekeeping' for more info. (I am NOT the expert.. just someone trying to learn a little and help the bee.

CB

Brian Fanner

Hey country boy. I have been keeping bees for 3 years now and started off with a TBH. One thing that is really irrritating about the TBH is the fact that when you take out the combs that are heavilly loaded with honey they are heavy and break very easily. A collapsed comb in your hive with bees and honey and all is very messy and disheartening, and you end up with dead bees. I came up with this plan to support the combs: Drill a 8mm hole through the top bar in the middle from the top down and glue in an 8mm dowel stick that extends down to the bottom of the hive. Put your starter strips on each side of this. The bees build their comb down and fix it on to the dowel in the middle providing much needed support. My TBH was also very deep and quite wide so the problem was even worse. I would recomend going for longer shallower TBH's to keep the combs small. I now have ten langstroth hives working and harvested over 80 litres of honey this season. I must say the langstroth hive is a far easier hive to work with on a practical level and the bees produce surplus honey much faster as they do not need to keep building new comb all the time. Still the TBH has its place for the smallholder who has no access to a honey extractor or the woodworking skills and gear to build the way more complex langstroth.

cjinVT

I thought I was all done with new animals for awhile. First the chickens, then goats (now gone), then cows & sheep. Done...

Now fish, of course, and as of Monday bees! A friend installed a hive at my place and a few other friends (he rents). I got stung the very next day but probably not from those bees (I was in the hoop house, several hundred yards from the new hive).

All done!

Except that I have a turkey order to place... :roll:

countryboy

Well done!

I'm helping a friend build a couple hives on Monday. I also plan to add another one or two to my property!! Nothing like (relatively) free honey/labor. I'm amazed at how hard our hives work... all the time!! I can go out in the middle of the night and open the window in the side to peek in and the bees are busy inside!! They work 24/7!

Congrats on the addition.

CB

Snags

Do you separate the queen from the honey?
In a traditional hive you have a mesh that is to small for the queen to get through so you don't get eggs laid in the honey comb.

I had a hive land in my compost bin one day ended up buying a net hat a smoker and built a hive
Had them for a few years then had to sell them when I moved into an apartment.
Great to watch,great honey I used to rob the lid once a week
It would taste like what ever was flowering that week
Oregano and thyme honey was excellent

Burnsy

earthbound wrote:

I like it........ Keep us up to date with how the hive goes, I'd be interested to see how it goes.

+1
I just ordered the Golden Mean Hive plans and plan on giving the system a run here. I know nothing about bee keeping at the moment other than what I have gleaned from a few hours of reading.

Anyone know of any swarms locally that I can relocate I would be happy to give it a shot, there might be a laugh in it for you :funny1:

faye

Burnsy wrote:

Anyone know of any swarms locally that I can relocate I would be happy to give it a shot, there might be a laugh in it for you :funny1:

We have one in a nest box Mike, it is all yours, however it is a couple of meters off the ground. I reckon that there are 2 things I don't attempt from ladders one is a chainsaw and the other are bees, the first step back is a doozy, but you are welcome to try. We have the gear, a suit and a smoker if you're game. I'll get a video camera too :thumbleft:

Burnsy

faye wrote:

Burnsy wrote:

Anyone know of any swarms locally that I can relocate I would be happy to give it a shot, there might be a laugh in it for you :funny1:

We have one in a nest box Mike, it is all yours, however it is a couple of meters off the ground. I reckon that there are 2 things I don't attempt from ladders one is a chainsaw and the other are bees, the first step back is a doozy, but you are welcome to try. We have the gear, a suit and a smoker if you're game. I'll get a video camera too :thumbleft:

Consider it gone Faye, just give the plans a week or two to arrive and me a week to make up a hive. I want shared rights to funniest home video winnings :laughing3:

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