Top Bar Hive
The top bar hive isn’t a brand new concept. Historical reference to the top bar hive date back to the 1600′s. Most of today’s top bar bee hives are derived from work within the 1960′s. It absolutely was perfected for use in Kenya, Africa, and is usually referred to as the Kenya Hive. Nowadays it is also utilized in many alternative developing countries for it’s straightforward design and value effective management methods. In recent years it has conjointly become more well-liked within the United States.
The traditional Langstroth beehive consists of many boxes (supers) and various different parts that are either difficult to make or expensive to buy. In addition to the beehive, the Langstroth hive requires several alternative items of equipment to harvest honey and manage your bees. Not so with the top bar hive as you’ll browse below.
Easy and Maintenance-Free
The top bar hive has only a few parts: the hive body (box), 25 to 30 top bars (frames), and a lid. That’s all you may ever need. Compare that to your Langstroth hive. Bees build their own comb that eliminates the need for pricey frames. The top bars are re-used once the harvest.
Non-Invasive Style
The top bar hive is healthier for bees. To check your bees, you may not have to take the whole issue apart. Hence, your bees can be less disturbed by your presence and checking of the comb.
Easy Harvest
To reap your honey, you merely remove the bars with honeycomb. Not like traditional strategies, you will not have to take the hive apart and disturb the bees as much. Not solely is the top bar hive less stressful to reap for you, it additionally will not disturb the bees as much. Additionally to honey, the top bar hive has more beeswax to harvest. You furthermore might do not would like a honey extractor/centrifuge or uncapping knife that saves you thousands of dollars. Smoking is totally unnecessary and many top bar hive users do not wear protective clothing either. (For the beginner I do advise to use some kind of protection, gloves and veil as the minimum!) Once you remove the honey comb, the bees will go about their business as usual. Try that on a Langstroth hive.
Healthier Bees
The top bar hive is meant for the bees’ optimal living conditions. This makes a colony much stronger and enables it to fight off pests and diseases on their own, much better than in an exceedingly Langstroth hive. Besides healthier bees this will save you loads of bucks in medication along with disappointment.
Why doesn’t everyone use top bar hives?
The top bar hive is not designed for maximum honey production, though there have been reports otherwise. For the hobby beekeeper a few pounds less honey are well worth the convenience of management. You will harvest more beeswax with a top bar hive though. Any hobbyist should have additional of an interest in keeping healthy bees than in squeezing out a few more pounds of honey from a stressed, overworked colony. With simply one top bar hive, you may still have a lot of than enough honey for your whole family and friends.
