Re: How would you all respond to this "constructive criticism" of the top bar hive?
I tend to agree with those who think he's just trying to be helpful. I am also just trying to be helpful. Here's my response.
>CCD is a big problem, but the facts are that no one knows exactly what is causing bees to abscond from their hive. It could be treatments, it could be systemic pesticides, environmental changes, mono-cropping or any other stresses or a mixture of all. Treatment free or top-bar hives aren't the cure-all to CCD that anyone has found out, yet.
True.
>I saw someone mention that a smoker isn't needed in a top bar hive...
The idea of not smoking being better is a mystery to me. Not upsetting the bees with a defensive reaction is less disruptive than setting off a defensive reaction. I would light a smoker. I open a lot of hives without smoke because I need to catch a queen, and not because I think it's better. They still eat honey at the same rate. I don't believe it sets off them eating honey to smoke them. Nor does it make them think their "house is on fire". It just covers the alarm pheromones.
>Gathering your own "unmedicated" swarms: No one can say you're getting an unmedicated, organic line of bees in a wild-caught swarm. This is impossible.
The small bees are almost always wild ones... unless you have a small cell beekeeper nearby...
>I saw the top bar hive you're building and estimate it's probably 2.5 to 3' long.
IMO way too small... make a longer one with the same shape for a hive and use that one for a nuc and to collect swarms... You can swap from the smaller to the longer one when they have the smaller one 80% full...
> If you're going to get into beekeeping, I'd have at least 2 hives to start off with
Definitely. 2 1/2 is even better. Two hives and a nuc gives you some resources.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespanacea.htm
>and those would be Langstroth.
I would say they should be interchangeable, they don't have to be Langstroths to be interchangeable.
> The reason is; a 3' top bar hive is going to be filled to capacity within a couple of months...
Yes, a 3' top bar hive is probably going to swarm... several times a year...
> With a TBH you're stuck with what you have.
Pretty much.
>You can't expand the hive body to give them more room like you can with a traditional Langstroth hive.
Which is why you need to manage the space well. But you need space in order to manage space...
> I'd also recommend starting with a traditional Langstroth hive as a beginner hive because Langstroth hives are all built with standards that make the frames and boxes easily interchangeable between hives or between boxes of the same hive.
Interchangeability is nice. But if you have several top bar hives with the same width and shape you can interchange them as well.
> bees are much more likely to build a complete mess of comb in a TBH than a Langstroth hive.
I've seen plenty of messed up comb in a Langstroth... but one bad comb leads to another and with no foundation between the frames you may have more messed up comb if you are not on top of things.
> Also, you're going to want to put a door covering the glass of the window. Bees prefer total dark.
And the window will make a great solar wax melter... not good.
> It's a good idea to have an Epi-Pen around just in case.
I saw a picture of one once...
> You can find some "hive placement" ideas online.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfaqs.htm#locating
>Propolis is a mixture of tree resin that bees use to seal things up. It also has disinfectant properties that help the hive's microflora/fauna ecosystem. This isn't something you probably want to eat
I eat it often enough... mostly I chew it...
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>Everyone has a different vision and experiences regarding beekeeping.
Certainly.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesphilosophy.htm
>Just today I passed a huge row of Langstroths on Combee Rd. and noticed they all had the sugar feeders on top for the winter. It reminded me of the whole reason I'm going the less-invasive, less-taxing top bar method.
I don't see Langstroths as any less natural or any less invasive... feeding has nothing to do with the box they are in. It has to do with how good of year it was, if they are light going into winter or if you take too much of their honey. You do yourself and your bees no favors letting them starve.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfeeding.htm
> The bees are supposed to have their honey stores completely raped so they'll have to be fed sugar water over the winter.
That is only one cause of needing to feed. A failed fall flow, a drought, a bad year are other reasons.
> They aren't supposed to be put in chemically-laden wax frames with cells that are actually too big.
Agreed.
> They aren't supposed to have gaping holes opened up to disturb their internal body temperature too drastically.
I don't think the temperature of a brood nest changes much with opening a hive. If anything it goes up a bit from the disturbance and then levels out quickly. But then there is no reason to be getting in the hive constantly anyway once the comb is drawn, especially in a Langstroth. You will have to get in the TBH more often.
>Don't get me wrong, I know Langstroths can be done in a more natural way, but the overall design lends itself to being one of 'The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg' vision of keeping bees rather than allowing them to do things their own way.
Actually I don't think the design is, nor was intended to be, anything but a way to use what the bees do naturally. The way a Langstroth is run today with foundation and all, may be unnatural, but the original Langstroth was foundationless and L.L. Langstroth was very into what the bees naturally do. Rather than fight what the bees do, he decided to figure out what space they would leave so he could have frames that wouldn't be attached. There is no reason you cannot have all the advantages of a top bar hive, other than not lifting boxes and being cheap and easy to build, in a Langstroth.
I've added quite a bit to the TBH page based on recent discussions and the recent article in ABJ.
It is here:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beestopbarhives.htm
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But I will post it here:
Why a top bar hive? Why not a top bar hive?
It seems a lot of people get into top bar hives with a lot of misconceptions. They seem to think that a top bar hive is “natural” and there is no other way to have a natural hive of bees. I’m not exactly sure where this comes from, but I suppose par t of it is that a typical top bar hive has natural comb and a typical Langstroth hive has foundation. But I have seen top bar hives done with foundation, and I have thousands of foundationless frames in Langstroth hives. So if your only reason for going with a top bar hive is to get natural comb, you have other alternatives.
Another is the belief that the shape is more natural. I’d have to say any shape is natural. I’ve seen bees in soffits, gas tanks, walls of houses, floors of houses… bees aren’t particular about the shape. I see nothing more or less natural about a top bar hive.
Another is that you want a horizontal hive. But you can build a horizontal Langstroth hive. I have a few and they do just as well as the top bar hives.
I think the real reason for a top bar hive is that you can build it from scraps for next to nothing AND you get the above benefits, to wit: natural comb, (with both natural cell size and clean chemical free wax) no boxes to lift (horizontal). If you want all of these in one combination, then a top bar hive is for you.
Reasons you might not want a top bar hive.
A top bar hive, because it has a limited and fairly constant space, requires more frequent interventions to manage it well. This is not a problem when it’s in your back yard and you can’t wait to get into the hive. But it’s very inconvenient if it’s somewhere further away where you have to drive there.
Proponent or opponent?
I have been accused of being a top bar proponent most often. I consider myself neither a proponent nor an opponent. I have several and enjoy them a lot. I tell how to build and manage one here for that reason. But if all you want is natural comb, I’d recommend a Langstroth with foundationless frames. If all you want is to get natural comb and no lifting, then I’d put foundationless in a horizontal Langstroth hive. If you also want to be able to build it easily and cheaply I’d recommend a top bar hive.
Typical mistakes I see newbees make with TBH:
They buy a nuc for a TBH that cannot take Langstroth frames.
If you want bees on something other than the cells size or frame size your nucs are available in, then you should buy a package. Yes, you’ll find some “chop and crop” videos out there that make it look easy to take a nuc and chop it down to a top bar. Keep in mind these are ideal conditions (wax comb and not plastic which is more likely in your nuc, maybe no wires, or very fragile ones etc.) with an expert doing the work. You will most likely not be so lucky and if you’re a beginner you will (and should) be very intimidated by this undertaking. Probably the newbee's logic is someone told them nucs were better without considering the other ramifications. For some reason the magazines and books seem to assume that everyone wants bees in ten frame deep Langstroths.
They hang the queen cage and get a first messed up comb because of the queen cage.
They will always build the first comb from the cage and subsequent combs parallel to that one. So you have now doomed every comb in your hive to be messed up. Hanging the queen cage to “be safe”, is not “being safe”. Direct release her. Yes, they MIGHT abscond, but in my experience they will do it with or without the queen. Typically they like the one next door better and leave that one there anyway.
They buy or build a TBH that is far too small.
You only have a limited space to work with and no supers to add on, so if you start with a very small TBH it will swarm. Constantly. You need to start with a large one and manage the space well.
They are afraid to fix messed up comb.
One bad comb leads to another. One good comb leads to another. If you have bad comb, wishful thinking will not fix the next comb. It will be messed up unless you make the last comb a straight one by whatever means is necessary. Having a frame you can tie a comb into is good to have. Then you can always create a straight comb. Another solution is to find a straight comb and put it at the point they are building comb and put the messed up comb at the front (assuming you don’t tie it into frames or remove it). Empty bars between drawn brood combs will keep them busy building straight combs. Just don’t spread them too thin. They need to be able to fill that gap with festooning bees quickly.
They harvest all the honey and there is no fall flow and no drawn comb for the bees to put stores in.
I would harvest only a little at a time during the flow and try to leave them plenty for winter. This requires a bit of forethought and you probably are not aware how fast conditions can change. To take an old gun saying “aim small miss small”. Keep in mind when harvesting that with no drawn comb you cannot do last minute feeding where they just fill the drawn comb with syrup. They will not be inclined to draw comb when the weather is cold, late in the season.
If they lose a hive they blame something that is handy, like that it’s a top bar hive, or something they did, which may or may not have made a difference.
Hives die sometimes. Sometimes they cold starve (starve with stores in the hive). Sometimes they just starve (starve with no food in the hive). Sometimes they just dwindle in the fall or end up queenless after a swarm. Try to be objective about what might be the problem. If they outright starved, then you harvested too much or didn’t feed enough. But some things are beyond your control and all the above issues happen in Langstroth hives just as much as Top Bar Hives.
These aren’t so much limited to top bar hives, but seem to be common issues with newbees trying to be natural, which includes people going to top bar hives:
They won’t feed at all.
Feeding is not a “right or wrong” kind of thing. It is the kind of thing that should be done for the right reasons and avoided for the right reasons. Flows are hard to predict and even the bees fail at it sometimes. If you never feed they will starve sooner or later. Feed when you have a reason. If you want natural bees then try to manage them so you don’t have to, but if you mess up and harvest too much or the fall flow fails, feed them. There is nothing productive about letting them starve. Feeding might be unnatural, but harvesting their honey is too. You may have created the problem.
Related to this is you should have a plan on how to feed them. It may take some work and time to implement some of the plans, so have a feeder in mind and make sure you have it on hand.
They won’t smoke at all because they think it upsets the bees.
Of course this is backwards. What upsets the bees is when you open a hive with no smoke or far too much or far too hot of smoke. The right amount of smoke is a proven thing since man first started to work with bees. Contrary to popular belief, I do not think it makes them think their house is on fire. It simply interferes with their sense of smell. If it really made them think their house were on fire, then you would be able to get them to abandon their home because of it. I have never been able to produce enough smoke to make them abandon their home and I tried many times when trying to remove them from trees etc. I have, however been able to make enough to asphyxiate them. Of course that is hundreds of times more smoke than needed to calm them.