This makes for much easier use and much happier bees. As we create and upload videos to youtube about our top bar hives, youll see them here in this playlist. A short introduction to balanced beekeeping, extracted from phil chandlers book, balanced beekeeping ii. After seeing this i was sold on top bar hives continue reading.
There has been little written about the specifics of raising honey bees in top bar hives. The top bar hive has emerged as a popular alternative to the langstroth for people who are looking to avoid heavy lifting andor enjoy a more natural approach to beekeeping. How to build your own diy top bar beehive if you are looking to become self sufficient, a good place to start is to have a beehive in your backyard. How to build a top bar beehive from start to finish by jon peters. This is the bee hive plan for building a vertical top bar hive. Clear grain douglas fir offers exceptional toughness, beauty, and value and its strength is a benefit to the top bar hives longer sideboards, and sizable shingles. There is far less danger of chemical residue buildup in a top bar hive than in a. A fantastic intro to topbar beekeeping, and refreshingly different from most beekeeping books that ive looked at. Honey is sold as comb or chopped, drained then bottled. For a 48 hive, you obviously need an extra foot on each side and the floor, plus enough. Attach each follower board to a top bar, 5mm from one edge of the top bar. It is actually really cool because not only is it top bar but it is also stackable. You will get enough top bars for one hive from one 6metre length. The beekeeper harvests honey by cutting off the comb at its junction with the top bar, and comb cut from the top bars is not recycled within the hive.
It is often recommended that the hive body has sloping sides, reflecting the shape of naturally made comb so that the bees are less likely to attach comb to the sides of the hive. The beehive legs are then attached using 2x4s cut at 3ft each. I knew i wanted 2 hives, so i could compare and do a bit of manipulation if needed. Backyard beekeeping in the hampton roads area of virginia with a topbar beehive. Top bar bee hive, bee hive plans, honey bee hives, honey bees, buzzy bee, raising bees, bar plans, birds and the bees, bee crafts. My hives have low, central, side entrances, sloping sides and a pair of follower boards to enclose the colony.
This is a variation on the topbarnatural comb concept. At a high level, it is effectively a box on legs, with a cover. Managing the top bar hive, available from available in. Top bar hive honey harvest with sam comfort at the 2012 treatment free beekeepers conference in leominster, ma, one of the things shown was a top bar hive honey harvest. A kenya style sloped sides is so that the combs are more naturally strong and less likely to break and collapse when they are full of honey. The feeding of top bar hives presents some challenges by the design of the hive and limitations to options as compared to langstroth or other hives. The hive has the sides and bottoms fashioned from a single sheet of curved, thin.
At the university of maine we had plenty of questions when we first embarked upon the use of the top bar hive. Joel govostes has made a catenary tbh, and has kept bees in it successfully. You will also need a board 11 x at least 25 for the follower boards and for the top bars, 30 feet of 1 38 x 34 straight timber. As well as a topbar cover cloth there is a cloth fixed to the bottom of the quilt to retain its contents. Packed with clear photographs and diagrams, almost anyone can build a top bar hive in a weekend even if you have never done anything like this before. Position one of the side panels against the follower boards, resting on the top bars. An introduction to balanced beekeeping by philip chandler. Top bar hives essential management strategies also available at bees general attitude. A cedar top bar hive with incorporated stand, hinged lid, and plexiglas viewing window. This hive is another hive that would be great for those just being introduced to beekeeping. The main focus of this book is the proper management of a topbar hive for healthy bees, with honey and wax being excellent benefits but not the main focus of the venture. Design elements of a topbar hive topbar hives are easier to construct using available material than the conventional langstroth hives.
The hive body can be a long box, covered by a series of top bars laid side by side like a wooden keys of a marimba. Installing a package into a top bar hive if you want to install a package of bees into a top bar hive, i recommend that you start by reading my general instructions for bee package installation. The follower boards represent the inside and now you are about to add the outer skin. Top bar hive kit we provide premium top bar hive kits that are simple to assemble and built from precisionmilled pine for ecological impact. See more ideas about top bar hive, top bar bee hive and bee keeping. Conventional methods of keeping bees are effective, but top bar beekeeping is simpler, less expensive, gives bees a greater degree of freedom, and still. Free diagram and plans for a top bar hive mistress beek. These are the basics everyone should know when thinking about top bar beekeeping. Media in category top bar hives the following 41 files are in this category, out of 41 total.
For this topbar hive, i made 24 bars at 1 14 wide for brood and 10 bars at 8 wide for honey. Hives that have frames or that use honey chambers in summer but which use similar management principles as. This hive was invented in the mid1960s in england by w. The dimensions of a tbh arent really that critical, the bees will occupy the space given provided it offers suitable volume for a colony and protection from the elements. Three of these supers can be put on top of a 20bar tbh. Top bar hive kit top bar hive accessories beehive kits. If you buy one 6 metre length of 35mm x 90mm untreated pine timber studs, you can cut it into 500mm lengths and rip each length into 3 top bars.
A few topbars 45 with drawn brood comb may be kept for spring hiving if they are carefully stored. You can also print the complete design plans, and parts list which is posted below to build your own hive. Most hives of this type will be from 3ft to 5ft in total length. Another farmer friend, dana ecelberger, swears by the top bar. There is no direct passage of air from the top box to the vents under the roof. The quilt is filled with a suitable insulating material of plant origin such as chopped straw, wood shavings, dried leaves etc. Since douglas fir is among the heaviest and hardest softwoods, its dense composition compliments the light lifting of single bars of honeycomb 57lbs, versus the heavy boxes of. How to build a simple top bar hive by philip chandler. The top bar hive is designed with the beekeeper in mind, both in terms of the construction effort and the management of the hive once installed. The wood used in this design is timber which can go well all around the year. The modern top bar hive a simple, sustainable approach to smallscale beekeeping so what is a top bar hive. These misshapen combs often take up more than one bar and make it difficult if not impossible to navigate through a hive quickly. The total length of this top bar hive will be a little over 4ft in total length. Complete plans, cut lists and materials can be found.
Top bar beehives are known now as one of the most economical ways to keep bees, and they require no heavy lifting and no extra equipment, such as supers, foundation, or extractors. We first learned about top bar bee hives tbh from erick mcwayne at soos creek farm. The bees are the same of course, but the top bar hive is quite different from the traditional langstroth hive. Our top bar beekeeping kit comes unassembled, so its a great way to learn the basics of building a top bar beehive. With growing concerns about colony collapse disorder and the resulting decline in the number of pollinators, gardeners might consider maintaining a topbar hive of honeybees simply to increase vegetable and fruit yields through better pollination. How to build a top bar beehive, free plans on website. It is well described in his book, home honey production.
This followup posts gives the specifics for top bar hives how many bars you use, where the bees go, feeding, etc. Poor understanding can lead to disappointment, wasted resources and failure. Here is our complete collection of everything top bar. How to build a top bar beehive, free plans on website youtube. It doesnt hurt to start by making a template from cardboard or a scrap piece of wood, particularly for the end pieces. Learn to build a top bar beehive from start to finish philip chandler video on the bee feeder. This is the introductorylevel hivebuilding book you need to get started in natural beekeeping and check out the authors web site at. In emergency situations, give them what they need usually food or brood, sun or ventilation orientation of the hive. Beehive fence construction manual 2014 ss elephants and.
The problem with this type of hive is that new honeycombs can easily break away from the bar. Tbh and bee box is a type of beehive that you can build out of almost any type of wood. This design is in vertical section and has around four boxes along with floor, top bar cover cloth, roof, eaves vent and ridge vent. If deeper, the weight of the comb filled with honey tends to cause it to fall off the bar into the bottom of the hive. The object of a top bar hive tbh is to be easy and cheap to construct, easy to work and having natural sized cells. If one were to be used at the rear of a tbh with entrances on one end, then the brood combs which should be toward the front could be checked if desired without disturbing the super.
Reed gives an overview of the patented modern top bar hive. It is a horizontal hive, enabling beekeepers to inspect the entirety of the hive without moving heavy supers. Everything you need to introduce bees to your hive and look after them properly will be found in another book, balanced beekeeping ii. Installing a package into a top bar hive walden effect. How to build a simple top bar hive bee friendly austin. The bars form a continuous roof over the comb, whereas the frames in most current hives allow space for bees to move up or down between boxes. Gold star honeybees po box 62 spruce pine, nc 287770062 8285525225. Top bar beehive beekeeping top bar bee hive kits for sale. Crisscrossed combs in a top bar hive can lead to a lot of frustration for the beekeeper. Bee hive, top bar with 30 top bars backyard bee keeping. The bars form a continuous roof over the comb, whereas the. Heres a how to video on building a new top bar beehive using thermally treated poplar.
And if youre ready to build, here are some designs. Therefore, the beekeeper is warned to handle topbars with combs. A topbar hive comprises a hive body, topbars and roof. Your contribution will go a long way in helping us. To build the hive box, youll need to make some exact measurements. If you prefer to use top bar hives in your apiary, we have those too.
Bees kept in a top bar hive devote resources to wax and honey production in about the same proportions as in a wild hive. If youre looking for eggs, the queen, or simply trying to harvest honey. While this obscures some of the effort involved in manufacturing a top bar, this simplicity is one reason it has been so popular. Each top bar hive has various color options available, which includes painted. This allows the maximum amount of comb, and stores to be built up. I recommend using a standardized tbh design for innumerable reasons, including the ability to. This 5bar nuc has a 5bar super on it that is the same depth as the hive body.
229 1129 1405 358 648 971 948 812 514 307 166 294 1195 686 1031 799 793 1159 929 449 941 262 1254 696 1323 363 1592 1395 598 1071 1017 1011 784 759 1439 510 574 272 844 1222 661 230 1181 1192 820 1190