Top-Bar Bee Hives

[heliotropicmoth]

Hi all,

Just finished building my two cedar top-bar bee hives. I populated them with 10,000 bees each two weeks ago. About three days after that one hive absconded for no apparent reason. The other hive is doing great, I can sit in front of the hive and watch them come and go all day. Does anyone else here keep bees? If so how do you keep them? Here is my blog post on building the hives and installing the bees.

http://littlecountryhouse.blogspot.com/2012/05/top-bar-bee-hives.html

Patrick

[Jim]

We have a Warre Hive/foundation-less, year 2.  They made it through the winter good, but we were light on bees prior to flows this year.  We only took 2 pints of honey last year, and we probably shouldn't have even taken that.  This year we way over planted crimson clover as winter cover crop with the intention of letting it flower and time it with nectar flows.  We are right on target and for the past 2 weeks, the bees are hitting it super hard.  Not to mention all the lady bugs, soldier beetles, hover flies, and bumblebees we are getting (100's at a time). 

We have 2 brood and 1 honey super on now, and we will be checking this weekend or next to see where we are at for another honey super.

Here is our raised beds, and if you squint just right you see our yellow warre hive way in the back above the littler trellis:



Great post on your site Patrick.

[heliotropicmoth]

Well you answered my other question in this post. Thats a lot of red clover! I planted a ton of dutch white clover in my back-yard for the bees and also for my future chickens / rabbits. I would have planted some red clover but I have read rabbits cannot eat red clover. How do you harvest the honey from a Warre hive? As always Jim, when I see a pic of your land I am very happy for you, jealous but happy. 

[Jim]

Last year we just did a scrape and gravity drain over the bucket.  We joined the local beekeepers association, and apparently we can borrow the extraction equipment which I hope is good.  Though I do watch a lot of the youtube videos on DIY extractors and thinking about a rig.  What are you thinking about?

[heliotropicmoth]

Personally I will only be harvesting a small amount of honey so I will just cut the caps and gravity drain whatever extra honey they produce next spring. I will heat the wax / honey to separate the wax for soap making. Since my bees are new to the area I am not going to rob this year so hopefully they make it through the winter. If all goes well I will raise a new queen in the spring to populate my other hive. I think you can get away with a few more hives Jim, say 30-40 more.  You should try top-bars.

[Jim]

We took 2 pints of honey last year (year 1), and their stores were gone in Feb, so we had to do sugar water before the flows started.  We are planning a new hive for next year in our orchard area (25 trees) for next year since our bees tend to not follow a flight path in the opposite direction (with the exception of the crimson clover).  We have a 250 acre tree/shrub nursery two properties over and they spend waaaaay too much time over there and off our property. 

Oh and our bees (Italians) turned mean, which our local keeper/mentor says is good for hive survival, but bad for bee husbandry 

[heliotropicmoth]

I published a top-bar hive update on my blog check it out:

http://www.littlecountryhouse.blogspot.com/2012/05/bee-update.html

My remaining hive is going gang-busters! I like keeping bees, next stop chickens!

[ShenandoahJoe]

Great photo!

[heliotropicmoth]

I have some bad news.



This is what a wax moth infestation looks like. I didn't realize my bees had abandoned the hive and wax moths took over.

[Obiwan Kentucky]

Sorry to hear about the wax moths, but the beehive pictures look great. As does the clover- I've been passively encouraging the clover in our lawn and acreage, but this year I'm going to go ahead and actually buy seed.
We've had bee's before and had foulbrood take them out (in the "standard" box hive) so I'm thinking that top bar beehives might be our best bet. With our orchard and blueberries it'll be good to have a hive or two.

Also planning on encouraging/buying some orchard mason bees... just because they help out with spring pollination.
While waiting for the proper time to get bees, I'm looking around at different bee forage plants that I might plant. Found a lupin variety that's supposed to have edible seeds, so that might be worth planting along with the clover...