Presenting top bar hives

[oldgreyone]

Last night I had the privilege of being asked to present top bar hives to the local beekeeper's club. I showed an Kenyon that I have waiting for package bees. Got a lot of keen questions from beginners to commercial bee people. It was exhilarating to see so much interest in alternate approaches to beekeeping. The main selling point seems to be the lack of need to lift heavy supers all the time. Is this similar to the experience of others?

[MichaelW]

I got lots of ooohs and ahhhs at my local club when I showed pictures of top bars from Dennis Murrel's (BWrangler's) site.

I did a short speal on "unconventional beekeepers" that included photos and observations from Dennis Murrel, Michael Bush, Walt Wright, and George Imire. It was part of a broader topic on where to go to learn about bees (books, magazines, and the internet)during our clubs short course. My idea was to introduce people to the fact that there is way more than one way to keep bees, and encourge people to learn about what others are doing.

Thanks Dennis and Michael,
I hope using your stuff was OK, I made clear where and who the pictures and info came from.

Michael Bush, I included your "lazy beekeeping" list which people seemed to enjoy. Although I'm personally not-sure about the not painting equipment thing. [img]smile.gif[/img] pine rots pretty quick down here.

[Michael Bush]

>The main selling point seems to be the lack of need to lift heavy supers all the time.

That is certainly one point. Of course any long hive will have that advantage. Top bars have the added advantage of being cheap and easy to make.

>Is this similar to the experience of others?

The people who have come and seen the bees in the top bar hive are very favorably impressed. The ones who just see the idea are pretty skeptical. It just sounds wrong to them to not have foundation or frames.

>I hope using your stuff was OK, I made clear where and who the pictures and info came from.

As long as you give proper credit I don't mind.

[MichaelW]

Thanks, I gave the credit and the course was free. Its something we do annually in the spirit of freely educating.

I also have a link to your site, and the other people sites in my presentation, on our clubs website links resource. I went through the list for them. Here is our website, click on links
http://acbeekeepers.org/
Some may recognize Jeffery Pecks's photo, he gave us permission to use it on the homepage.
Thanks again Jeffery.

[oldgreyone]

I hesitated to use any pictures other than my own, but the next time maybe will use some to get the idea across better giving proper credit as I go. I gave a list of web sites including this one and bwrangler for those more curious.
We have a few hives set up as club hives and this year a Kenyon that I donated will be part of the group. Looking forward to see how much interest this stimulates.

[Walts-son-in-law]

MichaelW,

Thanks for the mention and the link. For any who might be interested, there is newer version of the page in the link that has been updated by Walt available by email. Send a request to
waltwright_ at hotmail dot com
The underscore IS necessary. There are no spaces. I spelled out the @ and the . to fool the bots and spiders.