Top bar hive seduction!

[Jon]

Good business for beekeeper suppliers, they get to sell beginners a topbar in the first year, then get to sell them what they actually need a year or two later.

They are cheaper, but candles are cheaper than energy efficient lightbulbs too...

LOL. Good to see I am not alone in the cynics club.
I think top bar hives are a viable option if you are on a really low budget and are into happy clappy save the bees thinking, although come to think of it losses are often high. Mind you, there is the option of correx if you want to make a hive for next to nothing. The main problem with the TBH is the baggage which comes with it re. leave alone beekeeping and swarming themselves to oblivion. The great master and author of the barefoot beekeeper admitted on his own forum that he had been ´wiped out´and lost all his bees 3 times in the last 10 years due to non treatment of varroa in his top bar hives.

[Calum]

noone biting...

[Mellifera Crofter]

... The main problem with the TBH is the baggage which comes with it re. leave alone beekeeping and swarming themselves to oblivion. ....

noone biting...

Ok, I'll bite: Tob-bar hives don't have to come with 'baggage' - not even a Warré which you can use with movable frames. I haven't yet used one, so I can't answer Calum's points. I've mentioned somewhere else that I'm building a TBH this winter (a long hive first). Time's running out, but I hope I can still do that. Maybe I can report back later in the year.
Kitta

[Neils]

Agree it doesn't have to come with baggage but by and large if not baggage it does seem to come imbued with magical properties too. I think if it's accepted on its own merits as a box you put bees in with strengths and weaknesses like every other hive design then there's no problem with it. AS ever, would be interested to hear how you get on with it.

[madasafish]

I find life is easier without baggage.

I run my TBHs as I would run any hive: subject to its design limitations..

Since I am mean and build everything from pallets, they are ideal (I was edukated in Aberdeen and the meanness rubbed off:-)

I have OMFs closed off for winter.. and treat for varroa and have insulated roofs.. plus old underlay on top of the topbars.

Only -6C the coldest this winter , -18C prior two winters .. and bees survived - so far.

[Calum]

Ok, I'll bite: Tob-bar hives don't have to come with 'baggage' - not even a Warré which you can use with movable frames.
Kitta

Right enough no baggage, but tents don't have hot running water or flush toilets either.
TBH are great for beekeeping in third world countries; they are an excellent way for people to start beekeeping for next to nothing providing a supplement to their incomes that can make the difference between their children going to school or not. If I ever win the lottery I'd love to go to the third world teach tbh beekeeping instead of the job I do now.

But we dont live in the third world, and bees are under so much pressure here to survive, I believe it is important for the beekeeper to work rationally and have every option available to work his hives. That means for me moveable frames, swarm control using the tilt method (in my opinion the least invasive method). The increased efficiency in honey extraction and reuse of the wax (frames/foundation) pays for the baggage. 1kg wax is roughly equivalent to 4kg honey (so making them replace their own stores + removed wax is additional stress especially in autumn as these are the bees that should overwinter!).

Since I am mean and build everything from pallets, they are ideal (I was edukated in Aberdeen and the meanness rubbed off:-)

thought about that myself, get pallets free from work too, but couldn't find any that wernt treated with something. Wouldn't like anything of the sort getting in my honey. If its oil based it will get in the wax, if its in the wax its in the honey.

[Neils]

I think on an inverse train of thought that giving bees "something to do" (i.e. draw out wax) can help reduce their impulse to swarm. I've absolutely no evidence to back this up, but even just in the supers, if they're building combs, they're occupied. I tend to alternate supers, the first that goes on is comb to give them space immediately to begin to store nectar, subsequent supers will be a mix of drawn and undrawn combs until they're used up then they get empty frames (I don't use foundation in the supers) to draw.

I don't keep any comb in my hives for more than two seasons in the brood area or three in the supers. I've read a few things and heard from others than in nature a colony will tend to stay in-situ for 2-3 years after that point there is a tendency to "swarm out" and find somewhere new.

You don't get something for nothing so I'm sure that if they're building wax in the supers, that's jars of honey going "down the drain" but the relative quantity of nectar/sugar it takes to draw a pound/kilo of wax seems to be rooted in folklore rather than cold hard fact. As I don't rely on honey for my income I can cope with losing a couple of jars of honey in exchange for new, clean wax in the supers in brood boxes.

Maybe I should get a top bar hive Does it count if I turn it vertically as I still think that for the UK the biggest problem with it is that it's a long hive (ignore the bulky nature of the thing) and bees like to go UP not sideways.

[Mellifera Crofter]

... Maybe I should get a top bar hive Does it count if I turn it vertically as I still think that for the UK the biggest problem with it is that it's a long hive (ignore the bulky nature of the thing) and bees like to go UP not sideways.

Yes, that bothers me as well. You can turn it up. It's called a Warré.
Kitta

[susbees]

Maybe I should get a top bar hive Does it count if I turn it vertically as I still think that for the UK the biggest problem with it is that it's a long hive (ignore the bulky nature of the thing) and bees like to go UP not sideways.

How do you know bees like to go up, perhaps it's just that trees tend to grow that way? And they like to be high up, but I don't see that many hives off the ground very far (and office blocks don't count) ...

[Neils]

How do you know bees like to go up, perhaps it's just that trees tend to grow that way? And they like to be high up, but I don't see that many hives off the ground very far (and office blocks don't count) ...

Watching them for the past 4 years or so, in standard hives, various long hive adaptations including a fair few Top Bar Hives and speaking to others who've tried long hive variations. I'm not entirely unconvinced that the WBC might not have the right idea with only 10 frames in the brood boxes.

If you stick a super on a brood box, especially a 14x12 that only has 8-9 frames drawn out they'll tend to ignore the outside frames in favour of playing in the super instead.

As for height, I'm not convinced that it has much of a bearing. They tend to nest high up in the wild because, most likely, that's where the majority of suitable sites are to be found. Tell the bees that quite happily settled in an empty nuc I'd forgotten to close up that they should be looking for sites 10+ feet, rather than 10 centimetres up in the air.