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Hi Everyone,
I live in Central Indiana and am starting beekeeping this Spring. I have enjoyed reading the threads on this site and thought I would jump in to learn more by asking questions. Right now I am looking at starting a couple hives and am still trying to decide on Langs or some kind of Top Bar hive. I am leaning toward the TBH simply because of the cost and inspecting the hive seems less invasive. I am looking forward to being a member of this forum.
Doug
Hi Doug, I live in Indiana also, but use the Landstrom hive. I have seen that there is a new hive producer online for the TBH called BeeThinking, they are offering a have today at a $100 discount.
Welcome to Beesource!
If you are thinking about a Top Bar hive, there is no need to buy one. You can build your own with little more than a handsaw, if that's all you have available:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm
I was thinking about building one either using those plans or the biobees plan or more recently the 1/2 barrel hive has caught my interest because it looks like I could use a medium nuc instead of packaged bees which might be better, but I am not sure. What do you think?
Have you considered a horizontal hive?
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshorizontalhives.htm
Easy to build, can be used with just top bars, or if you size it correctly, could also be used with Lang frames. Since you haven't decided between a TBH and Lang yet, this lets you get started and be able to fairly easily convert either way, once you have some experience. :D
Welcome Doug!
Welcome! Awesome site.
Howdy Doug, welcome to beekeeping.
In your thread title, I think you meant, "Hoosier".
I bought Dwight Mangum's book and built 5 hives for under $200, now thats quite economical,, now I still need to build feeders and such,, but for those who want to start on a shoe string budget,, its a start,
one thing,, it can be a little difficult to extract,, so many crush the comb,,
Good catch Joseph! Yes, my bad for typing too fast! :-)
Hello and Welcome!
If you're thinking about a TBH, drive over to Graham's BeeWorks in Morgantown and have a chat with Roger Graham (call first).
http://www.grahamsbeeworks.com/
Roger has experiemented with different TBH designs in conjunction with some military initiatives at Camp Atterbury, including some half-barrel designs. I've bought a lot of packages, nucs, queens and equipment from them over the years.
I'd also like to invite you to our local bee club, the 10oClockBeeline. Very informal group: no officers, dues, agenda - we just talk about beekeeping. We meet at the library in Nashville on the 2nd Monday of the month (however we take off the winter months since driving in Brown County can be dicey in the winter). We've got a number of members from the Sweetwater-Edinburgh area.You can sign up to be on our email list here:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/10oclockbeeline/
Hope we can meet sometime,
Mark
Thanks Mark,
I just joined your Yahoo group. Then you guys are not meeting this month? If not, when will be the first meeting?
Doug