Top Bar Hives

With a few simple concepts and readily available materials, a top bar hive beekeeper can easily and inexpensively construct everything the bees need. And that equipment can be easily changed or adapted as new conditions arise.

A top bar hive is a trough shaped box. Wood bars, the top bars, set on top of the box. Bees attach their comb to these bars which are removed for inspections and colony management. A cover over the top bars, provides weather protection. The entrance is just a hole in the box.

A top bar hive is a long, horizontal hive with removable combs. Top bar hives are the essence of natural beekeeping simplified.

Advantages

Top bar hives have many advantages over standard Langstroth equipment:

• Facilitate natural beekeeping. Bees build the broodnest their way.
• Calmer bees. Disturbed bees move away from the beekeeper.
• Less colony disturbance with minimal beekeeper exposure.
• No heavy, repetitive lifting.
• Inexpensive. Cost $30 versus $200 for a standard hive.
• Produce the highest quality honey and wax.
• No extracting equipment needed.
• Self contained. No additional storage space required.
• Facilitate comb rotation.
• Easy to build.
• An ideal educational hive.
• An ideal urban beehive.
• Won't break apart when dropped.
• Weather tight.
• Low center of gravity. Won't tip over.
• Adaptable to local building materials, conditions, needs.

Disadvantages

Top bar hives have a few disadvantages as well:

• Can't buy them. Must build them.
• Few local mentors.
• Produce less honey on a per hive basis.
• Can't be disassembled to reduce weight.
• Not compatible with standard equipment.
• No standardization.
• Comb is fragile.
• Take longer to work.
• Hives must be level.
• Require a pickup or trailer to move.
• Not suitable for large scale, migratory, feed lot beekeeping.
• Zero resale value.

Management

Standard beekeeping practices focus mostly on bee equipment management. Lacking that equipment complexity, and with a natural beekeeping focus, top bar hive management becomes very simple. And, when fine tuned, it's infrequently needed. Minimal management and equipment needs reduces time pressure and produces a sense of simplicity.

Interaction

A top bar hive body isn't disturbed or taken apart when worked. So, there aren't heavy hive components, filled with defensive bees, scattered all over the place. A top bar hive beekeeper is more relaxed as he hasn't expended all that effort to separate, lift, scatter and agitate.

Top bar hives can be worked while seated. Or they can be built with legs at a comfortable working height. There's no bending, stooping, kneeling, or heavy lifting. And fewer guard bees are attracted to a stationary beekeeper.

A top bar hive is worked through a narrow slot created when a few top bars are removed at the rear of the hive. Most bees come and go without ever knowing the hive has been invaded. And if disturbed, the bees quickly move toward the entrance, away from the beekeeper. The results; fewer angry bees and much less smoke.

Handling a top bar hive's fragile comb, necessitates slowing down and working carefully. Combs aren't jarred. And a beekeepers movements are more deliberate.

Working a top bar hive is more than just working bees in a different kind of box. A top bar hive is worked in a different manner and that results is a much different experience. Heavy lifting, uncomfortable positions, defensive bees and clouds of smoke are minimized, while observation time is maximized. The results; a serene, pleasant and very educational experience.

Suitability

For a beginning beekeeper, a top bar hive is a great choice. It's inexpensive. It's less intimidating. There's no heavy lifting. And management skills are relatively simple.

Here's a simple test. How do you handle burr comb? Do you almost instinctively cut every single trace of it off? Do you take pride in keeping your hives absolutely free of it, even when the bees continually build it back in the same place? If so, I would suggest that a top bar hive would prove disappointing. But if you see that burr comb as something the bees choose and find ways to work around it, you will probably succeed as a top bar hive beekeeper.

Satisfaction

Top bar hive beekeeping restores much that has been lost through the industrialization of beekeeping. It allows for a natural broodnest structure which enhances colony function. And by working with the bee, rather than making the bee work for us, the bees are healthier. And beekeeping is much easier.

The ability for a man to provide the best possible husbandry and produce the best products possible using his head, hands, heart and a few simple tools is very satisfying. It's a rare experience in our post industrial, digital world.

Designing, building, stocking, and harvesting honey, from a top bar hive, is one of my most satisfying beekeeping experiences. And I've received email from other beekeepers, that attest to the same.

If I were starting over in beekeeping, I would standardized on a top bar hive design, especially if I were a hobbyist or a side liner.