Top Bar Hives ,Warre,Long Foundationless

[hobbitlady]

I'm a top bar hive Only beek,on my third successful year,and would enjoy sharing experiences but top bar methods are very different than traditional Langs.
Does anyone else on here have a TB or other alternative hive?  I'd really enjoy reading posts from you!    Thanks!

[hobbitlady]

Apr 5, 2015 18:54:41 GMT @redfish said:

I have a top bar, had 4 good years with it and then the bees died. It was my fault, we had 2 dry, no flower years in a row and I didn't feed them. I tend to be hands off, but should have fed them that time. Tried again last year and they died, missed out on getting some more this year. I'll keep trying. I'm also making a modified Perone hive to play with as well.

GLAD to hear from you!  Yeah a lot of top bar folks want to start out hands off or natural,I did, but,heck,they DO need "babysitting"! My first year my Carniolans swarmed by June from an April package! In a top bar a person Really needs to make space up front(brood area) for the queen or she'll swarm her flyers,so last year I did my maintenance and inspections once a month. I had to make space by giving drone comb to my chickens too when they needed space but didn't have honey to spare.  They built back up just as fast that first year and I fed them and treated them with thymol as well when I noted mite drop,so they made it through the winter-Barely!!!!_it was a Hard one here.....6 weeks in the 20s. Last year those boomers gave me a split and I also got a package for mixed genes out there. Now I have 3 top bars and with my feeding After taking Spring honey (I can see what summer dearth is Now,and with an easy winter this year I have 3 hives doing well. We all have to adjust and learn SO much that isn't in the books.I had to adjust my ideals too since I could clearly see that they'd die if I didn't.Gads.

[hobbitlady]

Those Perone hives are interesting! Thanks for making me look that up! he/he.

[Deleted]

I have 2 top bars but no bees. I had to put down both hives because they became africanized in 2013. Couldn't keep bees in 2014 because I was living with my parents who said NO BEES.  This year I have the hives out at the farm and I'm hoping to get a swarm from a beek in the area who has a waiting list for bees.

I love my top bars but was thinking about venturing into langstroths just to experiment. I miss my fluffy, stripey little friends.

[Deleted]

I have an empty warre bees died out 2 winters ago and I have not added back to it yet. No swarms have picked that hive as a new home either. I run foundationless langs and hived 4 packages. One of them absconded, yet today I noticed my empty top bar hive had bees in it. So maybe the abscond rehomed itself into the top bar. I am guessing that because I am still 2 weeks out for normal swarm time here.

I have not ever ran bees in a top bat so it will be a learning year

[hobbitlady]

Finally inspected all of my 3 top bar hives.2 I'd looked into and got 1/2 gallon of leftover winter honey from each awhile back. One looked 'flooey' to me,scattered all over the place instead of orderly.
--Yesterday I looked into my very active but smallest/split from last year.It was their first inspection and the second one for my other two hives.They are building up and have good brood.
-- My oldest TB is Booming,filling up the hive every time I make space and starting to make drones now. THEY are going to want to swarm in a month or two!
-- The third colony(from new package last year) had me worried as I thought from looking the first time that the queen was bad and laying poorly. Well,I think they faked me out because they were "moving" in the hive when I looked before. Now they are all in the middle bars. They are smaller than last year(but still building up slow like my split). I guess they are still strong since they got Really mad at my inspection. When I got to the middle 6 bars,opening to them from either end,they got Loud and got all over my suit. Once I saw those middle combs covered with solid bees on both sides,I decided they Were OK after all. My first inspection the spotty brood "left over" from where they'd moved away from had worried me. Now they seem to all just want to hang with the queen in the middle and that's where the brood now is. All 3 have lots of honey on the tops of their brood combs and partials going at the end.
--My split is the only colony I didn't treat last year for mites.It's a home made TB without a screened bottom. They are my natural "experiment"! I'm SO happy they seem to be just fine!!!
-- I knew that one commercial lang guy who sells honey in my valley had hived a swarm in a TB and just let them go natural(except he put a super on top of the back----he/he I guess he couldn't resist!) His had made it a couple of years when I talked to him,but I couldn't risk the expense of my first two colonies dying from mites and needing to be replaced and I treated mine with "half" treatments of thymol.Sooooo when I split last year for my 3rd hive I decided They would be my "test" bees! There are many areas of the country were untreated top bar hives will simply die of mite overload if not treated(from my research) BUT "pocket" regions are also reported where the TBs always make it despite the mites. Two hives in a valley does not a "study" make, but it's looking Good.

[hobbitlady]

Copy and Paste from my home bee Journal:

---------------" May 4,2015
Glad I got out to my bees after a week of putting it off due to “too hot”. Great “manipulation” day but the bees surprised me! I had a nuc box ready for Sidhe(booming Hive 1, I said was looking to swarm) and when I opened up there was very little brood in there ! I had my smoker ready to get covered by angry girls and they hardly cared when I pulled each bar out. I found an open queen cell and also a capped one and decided that although there is a big population in there they Must have already swarmed. Since I was geared up I decided to check Homey(Hive 3) and WOW! That colony had more than doubled and filled all the hive except the last bar Just since I last inspected! Happy Spring build up!....big Brood areas Everywhere all ages,drone too, and a queen cell and cup I transferred! So I made the split from Them and hauled the nuc box out to the woods where we put a table from my greenhouse re-do I’m in the middle of. I gave Homey five empty bars of space to keep ‘er going. She’s making drones this year for the first time, so in full swing of normal bee behavior. It’s So gratifying that a hive we made from scraps that I did my first split into last year is Thriving!
So I should have checked my sluggish CloverHive(Hive 2 from new package last year) too but I was sweating and felt I’d done Enough for one day. I hope that cluster in the middle has spread out but the door activity is Still half what I see for the others. I need to add a brood comb from Homey to Them next time;a good idea I got confimed by Pa,the DH of mutti online, that said it put a slow queen back into full gear for him one time. "------------------

Well, NOW I have a nuc from my untreated hive in our wooded perimeter,instead of my apiary space, that I need to make a full size hive for! I'll be really excited if they make a queen and fill a "wild-space" hive this year and then live through the winter. I wanted to start very natural with my bees but just couldn't risk the investment at first(of having them die every year)after I read the odds; and I did want enough honey to never buy any again. I'm so looking forward to what this new colony will teach me! I have High Hopes!

[hobbitlady]

Apr 13, 2015 1:08:59 GMT @charmd2 said:

I have an empty warre bees died out 2 winters ago and I have not added back to it yet. No swarms have picked that hive as a new home either. I run foundationless langs and hived 4 packages. One of them absconded, yet today I noticed my empty top bar hive had bees in it. So maybe the abscond rehomed itself into the top bar. I am guessing that because I am still 2 weeks out for normal swarm time here.

I have not ever ran bees in a top bat so it will be a learning year

Hey charmd2- Ever curious me I don't read every thread or easily miss some, so 'sorry' if you told this tale! Is your top bar still going or were they "passing through" or did you re-hive them?

[Deleted]

hobbitlady
They are still there. I figured it was a hive and they obviously wanted it over a langstroth. I haven't been in to check them very close yet. Just popped open the top and made sure they were making comb the right direction and not crosscomb. The comb is going to be soft and fragile for a while. I could mess that up in a hurry if I wasn't careful enough.

They are bringing in pollen and look to be fairly busy at the entrance.

[hobbitlady]

My new "woodland" untreated nuc has had nurse bees turn into foragers now! It's good to see fliers when I walk over there, and only took a few days for some of the nurses to mature. They've chucked about a dozen dead ....or fliers that didn't leave the transferred comb I moved that couldn't find their way home and got too cold. Sad but not a big loss at all. I Hope they are caring for their new queen or the cell,it was capped but I don't know for how long.If she's hatched it takes a few weeks for mating and laying to be obvious. For now I'm letting them 'bee'.
Oh,DH and I just decided that making a "long hive" is just as easy as a new top bar,so I'm going to give a foundationless "long hive" a chance. I love experimenting and my last year's nuc swarmed out in late summer so I want to give This nuc a Real home before it's too late! I had "enough" hives last year but it's still not fun to watch $100.00 fly away!!! A long hive can use lang frame top bars with spacers to make them work like a TB hive and they are cheap compared to beveled "real" top bars. The trick is to give the bees a small "guide" to build comb on....I knew I saved popsicle sticks for some reason,ha,and it worked on some spare bars I rigged up before,so no problem. I'm excited about getting a 4th hive going. We can have 5 hives here without a county fee or permit so I might as well 'go for it'!

[Deleted]

Yay, you get your long hive!

[hobbitlady]

May 10, 2015 0:38:11 GMT @charmd2 said:

Yay, you get your long hive!

Yeah,Telling you about Wanting one got it up-front in my mind,so you helped!

[hobbitlady]

Well, Michael Bush is "The Man" in the USA for natural beekeeping(meaning more natural For The Bees lives,not the human beekeepers).He's a Pro with top bars and foundationless langs but does also have a few pages on Long Hives. He was one of the "testers" for those Flow Hives and the main reason I knew from day-one they weren't some hoax. He used 6 they sent him to test, for a couple of years and wanted 6 more! Well, I went off my topic! Anyhoo, HE uses "mediums" as his long hive body base and "everyone" else I've read uses "deeps". SO,I have to study up on why he chooses to do it that way. Since long hives are too heavy to move anyway and I have my 'sort of' wild setting in place (table in our wooded perimeter with sturdy 4x4 legs) I think I'll make mine double-thick (like a "log"-giggle) too, so I won't fret over not insulating extra for the winter. Plans and study,plans and study....this is Fun! Since I enjoy a lot of prepping ideas,maybe I'll call this one "BunkerHive".....they are Bugged Out from the apiary! HAHAHA

[Deleted]

hobbitlady, I was looking at Long hives too. Can you post pictures? Lots of pictures!!!

[hobbitlady]

Hi buffy! I haven't even tried to post a picture on this site yet (edit-thanks for inspiring me!!!) but I will be taking pictures of our assembly...Whatever it turns out to be! I'll get back to post when we actually Do build it for sure! I still don't know how deep I want it..........

OK-looked up how to post a picture Finally!!! The almost half gallon was my First honey from Spring last year!

Researching long hives has driven me batty! Really opposing views on depth for healthiest colonies. MB's site only had 1/4 page with some pictures,so I really remembered That wrong. The book "keeping bees with a smile" that touts itsself as SO "natural" I have, is all about 20" depth BUT using commercial foundation! ugh. I suppose I'll compromise and use deeps,but still not sure.......ongoing.........

[manygoatsnmore]

Mmm, hobby, now my mouth is watering, looking at that honey.

[hobbitlady]

Here's a picture of my First top bar hive. It's the "golden mean" plan from Backyardhives,made from cedar by DH. This style proved to be a foot too short and is a real "swarm machine". Bees have lived 2 winters though so I can't complain too much!   A bit messy picture 2  all 3 hives today.

[Deleted]

I made my top bar tops similar to yours on the left. I found them heavy and clumsy to deal with so I took them off and made ones similar to the one you have on the right. Much easier!

[hobbitlady]

It is getting HOT here.I hope the predicted 99 does Not happen.
Decided to get the shade canopy I use for our 100 degree weather(usually July) over my hives a month early.Frame in place and will put up the top cover tomorrow.It's a high-enough open thing that fits tidy over all 3 hives and just barely keeps the first Fall rains off them too so I can still work "finishing up" with them before they cluster and get really cold.
Top bar comb gets Real soft in hot summers and I don't like getting up early enough for it to be cool enough to inspect.(I'm a night owl). I had a real "beezaster" one year when it was hot.The soft comb barely nicked the inside as I lifted and a whole tear ripped off and fell into another comb before I could do a thing....just opened like a zipper from a little side nick. Boy did I learn my lesson! I had several cups of pouring honey and several hundred bees drowning and 2 combs on the bottom inside the hive, before I knew it! It was slow work getting out what I could without causing a cascade effect. whew....I probably lost 5 lbs in that full suit too.
Anyway, Usually I'm Done taking honey before I put their shade up(unless I get a little in Fall but usually their Fallmade honey is All theirs,for the winter.
My harvest is a week or two away,not to mention I'm near due to inspect them all again.

The little "Bunker" named nuc I made, has bees gathering pollen and is looking great.It's a "go" for them getting a hive for sure now.I've had some "life happens" slowing me down the last week,but will get to that this month!

[hobbitlady]

My plans for Bunker Hive,my first Long Hive(hive 4 here) are getting rather complex(rolling eyes).Being a do-it-yourself beek is a "look out!" situation,as we can think up a dozen Custom features(we think would be handy or helpful to the bees living,from our own experiences) in no time flat if building a hive from scratch. DH was going to cut all the top bars as well as the lumber for me to assemble but with the base,lid and bar-cover inner pieces(that I've seen on all the examples I looked up) it was getting to be a lot of measuring and cutting already. SO,I bit the bullet and invested $63. in 30 ready made foundationless deep frames.The 'Bee Thinking' website has real nice ones with wedge tops built in(like top bars), and since this hive is going to be a permanent fixture in the woods,and a treatment-free experiment....well,I want it to last as long as a dead tree would.hahahah Anyhoo,DH being a woodworker,we had all kinds of lumber and screws already and that should be the only expense....I think! When the frames come we are just going to build the box around them...not try to measure it all ahead of time. So,it's Happening Soon! yippy.

haha-DH was so happy to be let off the hook for making all those top bar frames HE paid! Like charmd2 mentioned she and her DH have their own funds for special projects. WooHoo I have 60 bucks for Amazon prep stuff now!    I also discovered,on a huge bee forum,there is trend this year for top bar beeks to be trying out long hives! ME being trendy?!? Well, That's new!

[Deleted]

I had a "beezaster" once too. Heat, new comb and top bars, not a good mix.

[hobbitlady]

I'm assembling my deep frames now for the Long Lang with lots of tiny nails (instead of easy staple gun) and hive glue to make them extra Sturdy. I will begin posting the long lang project pictures later this week After I figure out photobucket! I was bummed the attachment feature has been turned off on this site;But,another new learning thing for me. I'm computer-dense so anything new takes me looking up tutorials. I know members have the steps written down here though,so I'll get on with it! -hobby-  

Ooooops that was BIG!  Well, at least I got it on here...........  oh figured out how to make it smaller(accidentally!!!!-hahahahahaha)

[hobbitlady]

The glue and clamp of the "liner" pine boards by DH (yeah that's his longgg post VietNam hair still)that will hold the frames for the long hive. The liner will be inset in the outer hive body and screwed onto it. There will be bee space of 3/8 inch under the frames and a larger space on top under the covers. There will be sectional covers ON the frame tops and the actual lid higher up. There will be a space that a tool can be left in or insulation added or whatever. I was going to leave this one totally natural and don't really know if I'll do insulation....a bit of air space doesn't hurt either though due to moisture being a winter threat and vents will be put on the ends in that space. Well,the next pictures will show what I mean by all that! 

[hobbitlady]

   Pine liner box,frames and divider board(left) for the Long Hive in progress....

[Deleted]

Nice Job! What color are ya gonna paint it? I did mine in bright yellow.

[hobbitlady]

Jun 24, 2015 1:26:51 GMT @buffy said:

Nice Job! What color are ya gonna paint it? I did mine in bright yellow.

Well,that's just the liner and it'll go into already weathered outside boards and base...(gonna weigh a TON)...so I'm not sure if I'll paint it,oil it,or what. Since I'm naming it "Bunker Hive" I guess it Ought to be camo painted!  he/he

[hobbitlady]

Long hive shown here progressing! OK now the base with bottom entry and porch(shown upside down), is attached and painted and all that's left is the hefty sides(for lots of insulation) and the top.
 My nuc bees were bearding yesterday and I Know they are getting crowded in there! Every day I'm hoping they don't swarm too soon. eeeeeeekkk...............

PS- most people seem to be doing Top entry these days for long hives,but I wanted the simple boardman feeder option;since to stop robbing all I have to do is put the feeder at one end and block the middle. With the small entry that's left at the other end. Robbers simple can't make it past Guards On The Inside for that many inches. Not to mention the inside feeding bees have the feeder crowded already.... Every time I see complaints about boardman feeders causing robbing, I just roll my eyes. Of course I SAID I was going to leave This hive all natural....that would mean no feeding...but I never know when I'll change my mind so the easiest option for me is built in for me.

[hobbitlady]

Bottom level of the honker sides going on today....hope us two over-60s folk can carry this thing! There are years my other hives needed insulation though and This one never will!

[hobbitlady]

  Here's Bunker Hive up on end in the shop with the feeder and a couple of frames and the divider in the bottom for scale. Ready for a hand truck.Well, almost no side paint yet.... Just the lid left to make and DH has it started! I Love this big ol thing but don't know How I'm going to transfer my foundationless  nuc with the hot weather....guess I'll be suiting up by 6 am some morning after we have a coolish night. That nuc has Got to be crowded by now but it's doing great,as per activity at the door. Nice bees too,my wild/local bred queen is raising good ones. They arn't disturbed by me walking out there and getting close at all.

[hobbitlady]

We are Finally down to fitting the inner frame top covers (lid is done) and figuring out what to do about the warped but sturdy old table my nuc was on.Leveling is gonna be a bear! We're talking about a whole new stand too but heck I dunno..............one day at a time thing going on.

I did move the nuc to a card table a few feet out of the way Hoping we can get the monster set up! ROFL. That nuc weighed a Ton too! If it's getting full of honey they might be getting ready to swarm.Oh I keep fretting about that....but it's happy fretting really....Anyway I watched the workers today come back to the empty table,hover a little, and then move over and go in the nuc. I put a piece of board by the nuc to get them to re-orient (cause of it looking different as they left) but it appears some of them didn't. Anyhoo the move wasn't far and all the foragers are getting back in, so all is fine.

I still haven't decor-painted and have to see what I've got around here. I think it'll be minimal...I'm thinking a few sort-of stenciled leaves,as per "camo" effect.