Transcript Horizontal and Top Bar Hives

Horizontal Hives
Horizontal and Top Bar Hives
Copyright 2007 by Michael Bush
Why Horizontal?
 No lifting of boxes needed
How do I build one?
 Build a long version of a
standard Langstroth box of
the depth of your current
brood frames.
 If you build it in some
increment of your standard
equipment your current
parts may be useful.
Management Differences:
You will need to:
 Lift a lot less
 Check them more often.
 Insert empty frames in the brood nest to keep the
brood nest expanding.
 Harvest less honey more frequently.
 Make sure the hive goes into winter full of stores.
 Make sure the cluster is at one end as winter starts.
 If you super, then to save lifting, keep the brood at
the opposite end from the supers.
Supering
 I like to use top entrances and if/when supers
are added, force them through the super.
Top Bar Hives
Another option in a horizontal hive is to do only
top bars with no frames.
Why a Top Bar Hive?
 Easy to construct because there are no
frames
 Natural cell size for Varroa control.
 No lifting of boxes (horizontal hive).
 Less hive disruption because there are no
gaps between the top bars.
Types of Top Bar Hives
Tanzanian Top Bar Hive (TTBH)
TTBH
 Vertical sides.
 Can be made to handle standard sized
equipment, making it possible to use
resources from standard hives.
 No angles to deal with.
Types of Top Bar Hives
 Kenya Top Bar Hive (KTBH)
KTBH
 Sloped sides.
 Easy to construct.
 For a given depth the combs are easier to
handle than the same depth with square
corners.
 Can’t use standard frames or standard
equipment.
Top Bars
The top bar is simply a flat bar with some kind
of comb guide. The bar is the width of the
comb and the beespace, so there are no
spacers and no gaps between the top bars.
Comb Guides
 A Comb Guide is necessary to get the bees
to build the comb on the bars instead of every
which way.
Types of Comb Guides
 Starter strips.
Types of Comb Guides
 Triangular comb guide.
Wooden Starter Strip
Types of Comb Guides
 Wax Starter strip.
 Triangular guide.
 Wooden strip.
Construction of KTBH
See Through Drawing
Construction of KTBH
Parts List
 2- one by twelves 46 1/2“
 2- one by twelves 15“
 1- one by six 46 1/2“
 Any kind of lid 15" by 48“
 16 bars 15" by 1 1/4" by 3/4“
 18 bars 15" by 1 1/2" by 3/4“
 34 triangles cut from the corner of a one by
3/4" by 3/4" by 1" by 13“
 2- 16" long cedar or treated boards for stand.
All cuts except for the triangles are square cuts.
Construction of KTBH
 The sides are one by twelves 47 1/4" long.
 The bottom is a one by six 47 1/4" long.
 The ends are one by twelves 15" long. None
of the boards is ripped or beveled. They are
just cut for length and nailed together.
Construction of KTBH
Construction of KTBH
Construction of KTBH
Construction of KTBH
Construction of KTBH
Construction of KTBH
Construction of KTBH
Construction of TBH
Top Bar Width
 1 ¼” brood (32mm).
 1 ½” honey (38mm).
OR
 1 3/8” for all (35mm).
OR
 1 ¼” for all (32mm) with ¼” spacers for when
the bees build the thicker.
FAQs
 Question: Some people say that TBH's don't
winter well in cold climates. Do they?
FAQs
 Answer:
 They winter fine in Greenwood, Nebraska
and Casper, Wyoming.
 The only argument people seem to have on
them not wintering well is they say bees won’t
move horizontally. Yet the traditional hive in
the Scandinavian countries is a horizontal
hive, still popular there and still available from
Swienty.
FAQs
 Question: Without a queen excluder how do
you keep the queen out of the honey?
FAQs
 Answer: I don't use a queen excluder on
regular hives either.
FAQs
 Question: How do you harvest the honey?
FAQs
 Answer:



Crush and Strain
Comb Honey
Swienty has an extractor
Crush and Strain
Crush and
Strain
Expense of Making Wax
Richard Taylor on the expense of making wax:
"The opinion of experts once was that the
production of beeswax in a colony required
great quantities of nectar which, since it was
turned into wax, would never be turned into
honey. Until quite recently it was thought that
bees could store seven pounds of honey for
every pound of beeswax that they needed to
manufacture for the construction of their
combs--a figure which seems never to have
been given any scientific basis, and which is
in any case quite certainly wrong…
Amount of wax to hold honey
From Beeswax Production, Harvesting,
Processing and Products, Coggshall and
Morse pg 41
"A pound (0.4536 kg.) of beeswax, when made
into comb, will hold 22 pounds (10 kg.) of
honey. In an unsupported comb the stress on
the topmost cells is the greatest; a comb one
foot (30 cm.) deep supports 1320 times its
own weight in honey."
Richard Taylor on Comb Honey:
“A comb honey beekeeper really needs, in addition to
his bees and the usual apiary equipment and tools,
only one other thing, and that is a pocket knife. The
day you go into producing extracted honey, on the
other hand, you must begin to think not only of an
extractor, which is a costly machine used only a
relatively minute part of the year, but also of
uncapping equipment, strainers, settling tanks, wax
melters, bottle filling equipment, pails and utensils
galore and endless things. Besides this you must
have a place to store supers of combs, subject to
damage by moths and rodents and, given the nature
of beeswax, very subject to destruction by fire. And
still more: You must begin to think in terms of a whole
new building, namely, a honey house, suitably
constructed, supplied with power, and equipped.... “
Richard Taylor on Comb Honey:
"All this seems obvious enough, and yet time after time I
have seen novice beekeepers, as soon as they had
built their apiaries up to a half dozen or so hives,
begin to look around for an extractor. It is as if one
were to establish a small garden by the kitchen door,
and then at once begin looking for a tractor to till it
with. Unless then, you have, or plan eventually to
have, perhaps fifty or more colonies of bees, you
should try to resist looking in bee catalogs at the
extractors and other enchanting and tempting tools
that are offered and instead look with renewed
fondness at your little pocket knife, so symbolic of the
simplicity that is the mark of every truly good life."
FAQs
 Question: Some
people say a top
entrance lets the
heat out. How do
you do your
entrances?
FAQs
 Answer: In any hive (top bar or otherwise)
heat is seldom the problem. A top entrance
in the winter lets out the moisture and cuts
down on condensation. My hives (top bar and
Langstroth) are all JUST top entrances.
FAQs
 Question: Does a KTBH have less side
comb attachments than a TTBH?
FAQs
 Answer: In my experience no.
FAQs
 Question: How do you treat for Varroa?
FAQs
 Answer: I don't. I depend on the smaller
natural cell size. But you can use most any
method with a little adjustment, including
drone trapping, powdered sugar, oxalic acid
vapor, oxalic acid drizzling, etc.
FAQs
 Question: How do you feed them?
FAQs
 Answer:
 If you made the hive standard width
(Langstroth dimensions) you can use any
standard feeder, if not you can custom make
the feeder.




Baggie feeder on the bottom
Frame feeder
Top Feeder
“Bathtub” bottom feeder
FAQs
 Question: What is different about the
management of a top bar hive?
FAQs
 Answer: In addition to the previously covered
horizontal issues:


Keep combs hanging and don’t turn them flat
Check for attachments before you pull a comb
www.bushfarms.com
 More information concerning top bars, crush
and strain, natural cell size and Varroa, top
entrances, horizontal hives, lighter
equipment, queen rearing, general
beekeeping, observation hives and many
other topics.
 Many classic queen rearing books.
 Huber’s New Observations on the Natural
History of Bees
Contact
 bees at bushfarms dot com
 www.bushfarms.com
 Book: The Practical
Beekeeper