What is a top bar hive? Parts of a top bar hive 1. Top Bars 2. Roof 3. Hive body 4. Legs 5. Follower boards 6. Window 7. Feeders 8. Bottom board How to operate a top bar hive Are top bar hives better than vertical hives? Advantages Disadvantages History of top bar hives What's the difference between a Tanzanian and Kenyan top bar hive? Learn about top bar hives and what makes top bar beekeeping one of the best ways to keep bees naturally. These hives are perfect for the beekeeper who wants some hands on learning with their bees!
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Lyson Hives Beemax Hives Hive Kits and Bundles Premium Collection Components Boxes Frames and Foundation Inner and Top Covers Bottom Boards Hive Stands Entrance Reducers and Guards Queen Excluders Tools Feeders Smokers Hive Inspection Tools Nucs and Swarm Retrieval Monitors and Scales Bee Health Feed and Supplements Medication And Treatments The top bar hive differs from the Langstroth both in how the bees build their combs and in how we harvest the honey. Top bar hives have a protective roof. Under that roof, along the top of the hive, are 24 removable wooden bars. (That's what gives the hive its name.) The top bar hive has emerged as a popular alternative to the Langstroth for people who are looking to avoid heavy lifting and/or enjoy a more natural approach to beekeeping. It is a horizontal hive, enabling beekeepers to inspect the entirety of the hive without moving heavy supers. There are several different top bar hive styles. For top-bar hives, once you are ready to harvest the honey, you have to scrape the entire comb from the bar, requiring that the bees build the comb back up. Some would argue that this keeps the bees healthy and active due to the additional work, but it does mean that you will get less honey from a top-bar hive.
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TOP BAR HIVE Posted November 12, 2015 by Hilary Whether you are new to beekeeping and trying to decide on a hive style or just curious about trying a new design, there are some definite advantages and drawbacks for both the Langstroth and Top Bar Hive designs. Shop Now Top bar hives and beekeeping supplies, including top-bar beehives with windows, adjustable legs, hinged roofs. Free shipping on orders of Bee Built brand products over $75. Guaranteed to ship within 48 hours. The top bar hive is an innovation of the mid-20th century - yet with roots going back centuries - that abandons familiar frames for a sequence of parallel wooden bars that cross the top of the hive like the beams of a roof. Bees then build comb that hangs down from these wooden bars just as they do in nature. A top bar hive, also known as a Kenyan top bar hive (KTBH), is a horizontal hive. Hence, it is also sometimes referred to as the horizontal top bar hive. These horizontal hives are somewhere between a log hive and a Langstroth beehive. It gets its name from the wood strips, known as bars, where the bees build their comb.
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Today's Horizontal Top-Bar hives are the modern version of very ancient and simple beekeeping methods. They are beekeeping at its simplest, easiest and cheapest: a protected cavity, with bars placed across the top and spaced appropriately so the colony may be inspected and managed by the beekeeper easily. A top-bar hive is a single-story frameless beehive in which the comb hangs from removable bars. The bars form a continuous roof over the comb, whereas the frames in most current hives allow space for bees to move up or down between boxes.
In a top bar hive, you, as the beekeeper, can encourage the bees to build in natural ways. By applying some starter wax to the top bars, the bees take the hint and start constructing downward. Because there's no pre-made foundation, the bees can build the combs as they like, often mimicking their natural environment. A top bar hive is a horizontally-oriented beehive. It gets its name from the bars that sit along the top of the inside of the hive. The bees will use these bars to build their comb hanging down into the hive. It's considered a more natural way to keep honey bees because it mimics wild beehives.
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Top Bar Hives Top Bar Hives Don't you love the Internet. I followed various links on bee blogs and found myself browsing the Dave Loveless site, an Alaskan beekeeper. I posted a comment and to cut a long story short this resulted in him offering to write a few words on his experiences of the horizontal Top Bar Hive (TBH). Top bar beehives may be one of the oldest forms of domestic beekeeping; the first written report observing these hives comes from the 1600s. Made from different materials that are often repurposed or recycled, top bar hives can be observed around the world.
