Our main focus with using top- bar hives instead of the traditional langstroth hive

is for organic, chemical free, natural management of bees and hives. For optimum
health bees need live in natural untreated hives, build their own combs, forage in
unsprayed environments, and not bee feed sugar or pollen substitutes. the top bar hive
mimics a hollow log, is made out of cedar and left untreated or painted. these hives
easily accommodate the strictest organic standards, are healthy and natural for the
bees, and can be build for as little as $40. In traditional hives a need to save honey for
the bees over winter in supers witch need chemical management for pest problems,
but top bar hives eliminate this problem of the need to store combs through the winter
witch eliminates the problem and the chemical solution. tradition hives rely on templates
for bees to build comb with predetermined size for large yields, but the bees build
diferent size combs for various reasons and need this freedom to do so for health, top
bar hives allows this freedom, and eliminate the plastic waste of traditional beekeeping.
Management of hygiene is another reason for top-bar hive use. In stander practice be
comb is used over and over again after honey has been extracted, while being proftable
this poses sanitation risks that invoke chemical spraying. beeswax takes in a holds oils
and toxins so a constant stream of replacement that the top bar hive ofers is very
benefcial to the health of the hive. The cons of top bar designs can be overcome with
skill and experience. the main thing to be aware of and avoid is cross combing, this is
when heavy honey fow causes combs to bend in odd directions that break of when the
bar is retrieved, its obvious why this is a draw back but experience is the remedy. in top-
bar hives bees have to remake comb every time honey is extracted so this makes for
less honey production than langstroths, but for healthier comb and honey.
Bees always build their comb from the top to the bottom of a space. In top-bar
hives the bars are the roof of the hive where we need the bees to build combs from. bar
widths need to be enough to hold one brood comb and have bee working space on
each side. In the wild the bees will build there combs with the perfect amount of space
in-between and we model our bar widths on this. For most asian and european bees a
top-bar width of 1 3/8 is needed and 1 1/4 is needed for africanized bees. In order to
get the comb on the center live of the bars a cleat can be attached, and dipping the tip
of the cleat in bees wax can entice the bees to build there. The angle of the walls from
the foor will either encourage the bees to attach the combs to the walls or not, and for
easy management we do not want the combs attached to the walls. vertical walls tempt
bees to attach combs to them and more slanted walls do not, but slanted walls also
produce less honey so a sweet spot is needed for production and management. the
sweet spot just happens to be the same angle that bees use for their combs, 120
degrees. Imagine a hexagon and then cut it in half and that is the shape we are looking
for. We want the hives to be 10 deep this has proven to work the best for the bees and
the keeper. 44 is a great length for the hives that isnt so big that a colony cant fll it and
isnt so small to provoke swarms. The last design consideration is the size and
placement of the entrance. bees dont seem to use entrances on the ends of the hive
and this is due to airfow and temperature control, when an entrance is put in the middle
of the side the bees tend to put brood on one side and honey on the other and this is
important because we dont want to disturb the brood nest, but we want dat honey.
A colony of honey bees can be looked at as a single organism made up of 3,000
- 80,000 bees. this creature lives by storing and eating nectar and pollen from fowers.
Inside the combs young are raised and food is stored. Honeybees are eusocial,
meaning that they live cooperatively and rely on each other for life, no one honeybee will
live for long on its own. bees like cells ofer diferent functions and continuously die and
are reborn, for the ultimate well being and success of the colony. there are three types of
bees that live in the hive, the queen, the workers, and the drones. The queen is the
mother of all the bees and defnes their genetic makeup, the workers are all sisters that
work together to manage the hive and collect food, and the drones witch are the males
that swarm with the queen, impregnate her, and scouts a location for the new hive. The
workers are the majority of the hive, they do the building, gathering, storing, defending,
and decision making for the hive. they gather nectar for honey, pollen for protein, water,
and antimicrobial propolis from trees to varnish and disinfect the hive. a workers live
span is 12 - 20 weeks and their jobs change over the course of their lives, creating a
cycle of workers through the various jobs. When a worker larvae is given royal jelly in
the comb it grows much bigger and develops reproductive organs. Queens are raised to
replace old queens and to expand to new hives, multiple are raised at once and when
the frst is born the others call out to her so she can kill the unborn larvae with her
stinger. When the queen is born she is escorted out of the hive with a group of workers
who fnd males far away who arent her brothers to mate with, avoiding inbreeding. She
loads up on seaman and returns to the hive to begin laying eggs. The queen also
produces pheromones that inhibit ovary growth in her sisters and daughters. The drones
are the males and in seasons of bloom when food is abundant the urge to swarm directs
the bees to produce thousands of drones. The drones and the queen then leave to fnd
and start a new hive. Drones also are very disposable and forced out of hives when
food is low and usually die after mating with a queen.
Beekeeping Basics
There are times and conditions in witch its best to open a beehive, this is when it
is warm, calm, sunny, and the fowers are in bloom. an afternoon summer or late spring
day when the bees are in abundance and focusing on expansion rather than defensive
isolation. many bees will be out working and their protective instinct will be low allowing
you to work with the bees and combs. On cold, rainy, and windy days bees will be inside
keeping warm and dry and will be more likely to sting if agitated. Light colored and
smooth cloths are what to wear into a bee yard, its a good rule of thumb to try and not
look like a hungry bear. Red, dark colors, and rough furry materials agitate sting
response. protective clothing is important but more so is know how to avoid causing
bees sting response, a minimum of a bee vail and sheep skin gloves should be worm
when handling bees.
Honey and larvae in that hive make the perfect meal for many animals, loaded
with carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. The bees must protect the hive with their lives
and the workers are all equipped with stingers tucked in their abdomen. The Guard
bees primary job is security, they guard the entrance and waft pheromones in if they
ever sense predators approaching. upon scent of this pheromone the older bees gather
at the entrance in case of attack and the younger bees fll honey stomachs incase the
intruder is to strong and the bees must fee. If nitrated upon the the guard bees initiate a
defense response, they bounce of the face of the predator as a warning and then
proceeds to sting the eyes, mouth, nose, and ears of intruders. When a worker bee uses
her stinger it is ripped out of the abdomen and the bee dies of blood loss., she also
leaves behind an alarm pheromone. the stinger is design to push itself deeper into the
skin and inject venom with its muscles last strength. The stinger and venom sac need to
be scraped carefully of skin and the sting area should be smoked to mask the
pheromone.
There are cave paintings thousands of years old depicting people wafting smoke
through honeycombs. A few pufs of smoke at the entrance and some in the back when
the hive is opened will greatly inhibit sting response in the honeybees. The smoke
cloaks and alarm pheromones from guard bees and also draws on the bees fight
response in the presence of fre, bees naturally live in trees and at the threat of forrest
fre they gather honey for an escape. In the presence of the smoke the bees become
preoccupied with collecting honey that the bee keepers can work with the hive without
disturbing the bees defense response. With smoke less is more, its to serve as a
warning to the bees and not engulf the hive completely. Bees dont have eye lids and to
much smoke will agitate them and move them into a place of panic which is not the
point of the smoke. Dried cow manure is the best smoker medium and can produce
desirable cool smoke for hours. We want to fll the smoker with fuel even for small jobs
to avoid the fuel from going out and the thick layer of fuel keeps the smoke cool. some
news paper is light and stuck into the smoker fame down and the smoker is flled about
1/4 with dung. the smoker must be pumped and open until the paper has burned of and
the dung is smoldering, once the dung is lit the smoker can be flled with dung, closed,
and used.
Hive Placement
The best place for the bees should be found before obtaining them. The bees
love the sun and should be placed in full sun, thou shade can lower the productiveness
of the bees if regular temperatures get above 100 regularly than the hives should be
placed somewhere they get partial shade in the afternoon so the can use less energy
keeping the hive cool. Honeybees like their entrance facing south in the northern
hemisphere and north in the southern, they prefer their entrance not to face prevailing
winds and beneft from wind breaks. Beehives need to be kept of the ground to bee
kept away from mice and other rodents/animals. Ants will also try to steel honey so
having sticky substances on the legs to stop ants will help. They also need water but
they cant swim so containers of water wont do they need rocks to land on to drink, and
if there isnt natural water sources in bees range they will need water provided for them.
It is best to be very conservative and as local as possible when obtaining bees.
We want bees with desirable traits, that are suited to local environments, and we also
want to avoid spreading of diseases and pests from other parts of the world so the best
place to start is any local bee keepers or bee keeping organizations. local hive nukes,
wild hives, and catching swarms are all ways to obtain local bees, and there are also
many breeders and companies that sell there bees through catalogues and the internet.
Hive Management
There are many levels of hive management that can result with varying degrees
of benefts. On the simplest level of management it is possible to do nothing after the
initial hive building and just leave the bees to live how the naturally want, from a
permaculture outlook a simple top bar hive can be constructed and bees can live there
undisturbed for many many years providing you with efective pollination with no work on
your part. Most beekeepers are after a product, that succulent honey, and the valuable
bees wax. If bee products are desired by the bee keeper a more intensive level of
management needs to be undertaken, this is involves keeping the hive orderly to
prevent cross combing and to control the honey fow for production. Bees will naturally
orient there combs in slightly curved shapes, and draw them out in patterns that dont
match the top bars. Starting with an empty top bar hive requires a lot of management in
the frst weeks colonization, but over time becomes less and less as the systems
mature. every couple of days the hives will have to be checked and 1-2 long new
combs can be removed and positioned correctly on the top bar, cleats help make this
task a lot easier for the bees and the keeper. The tops of the combs will be crushed in
oder to attach them securely to the bar, this is unavoidable and the bees will repair the
comb making it even stronger than before. Once two fully drawn out combs have been
produced getting the bees to make more is very simple, empty bars are spaced in
between the full combs and the bees have no choice but to draw the new combs
straight. Every time the hive is opened partially made combs in the back can be placed
between fully drawn comb towards the back, this also suppresses swarm tendencies
giving the workers something to focus on. In times of heavy nectar and pollen fow two
empty bars should be placed between comb towards the end every 2 - 3 weeks.
Spacing empty bars in the honey area and the brood nest is the most important part of
the mature hive maintenance, this gives the bees a feeling of space so theyre not as
eager to swarm, and it keeps hives orderly and productive for the bees and the keepers
beneft. Timing is key and we only space bars when the weather is warm, calm and
there is heavy pollen and nectar fow, spacing with pollen fow is low and the nights are
cold is a good way to put stress on your bees. Bees sometimes tend to fatten their
combs and this can be controlled by brushing away the bees and using a hive tool to
cap the comb at the desired thickness.