[quote="bee_pipes"]Congratulations on finding a supplier!

I have heard of baiting a new hive with wax and propolis. Regards,
Pat[/quote]

Might you be interested in selling me some wax and propolis??? :D

Congratulations on finding a supplier!

I have heard of baiting a new hive with wax and propolis. You dion't need to burn it - rubbing alcohol will dissolve propolis and can be used to paint the inside of the hive. The problem with top bar hives, I have read, is that the bees will draw comb anywhere that they find wax, making it important to be very careful of where you put wax on the top bars. I don't have that much experience with this to prove it true or not, but it has been my experience that the bees will draw comb across the top bars eventually, anyway. In a langstroth they would call it bridge comb - it gets a bit more intensive in a top bar. No biggy - makes a mess, but the benefits of an inexpensive hive far outweigh these minor inconveniences. It is good to have beeswax for coating the splines of the top bars, sort of directs the bees where to start. I put little pieces of foundation on the splines to be sure they get the idea.

So far as protective gear, the suit is a convenience and I have never been able to justify the cost. I just wear jeans and a denim shirt, when possible. Sometimes it's a flannel shirt. I have a weave-type mesh helmet ($14.50) and folding veil ($16.50), and the less expensive rubber-canvass gloves ($10.00).I tuck my shirt in and use twine to tie off the pant legs of the jeans.
[img]http://lappsbeesupplycenter.com/index_files/image966.jpg[/img]

You might be able to get by with stuff around the house - you can make a veil out of a shear, black mesh fabric, use existing head gear, and long gauntlet type gloves, but it was worth the expense. The gloves will get honey on them and are difficult to wash and dry, so expect to replace them every few years. In addition to that you will need a smoker ($40.00) and a hive tool ($7.00). You can use a small pry bar for the hive tool, but it will get honey, wax and propolis on it - good to have one just for the hive so you can find it. I have also found a brush most helpful ($3.00). This is similar to the brush you would find on the end of a long-handled ice scraper.

Fortunately, all these items can be had through mail-order, so shop around on the web. They can also be purchased at auctions, yard sales and thrift stores. I have had excellent experiences with [url=http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/]Brushy Mountain Bee Farms[/url] and [url=http://lappsbeesupplycenter.com/]Lapp's Apiary[/url]. Also, I have found the entrance feeders sold by Brushy Mountain ($3.00-$4.00) to be well suited to the top-bar hive. You may want to get the feeder before installing the bees, in case you should need to modify the entrance.
[img]http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/images/422Splasticentrancefeeder.jpg[/img]

I prefer burlap for smoker fuel. You used to be able to get this for free from feed stores - the seed potatoes are shipped in them. There is a demand for the burlap bags now and they are getting scarce. I now buy burlap. It is not costly, but a pain to have to pay for it. Fortunately, a small roll will last me a year. I cut it into strips - 3-4 inches wide, and tuck these strips into my belt when working the hives so I always have some handy to reload, in case the session takes longer than planned.

These are extremely handy items, but you won't need them until harvest time:
One thing I have not seen in years is a pair of paddles used for crushing comb. They are attached by cord or rope that acts like a hinge and used like a nutcracker or pair of pliers to crush the comb between them. I wouldn't mind picking up a set of these, and may wind up making one if I can't find them at a reasonable price. As with anything for handling honey, they need to be washable. Harvesting top-bars is messy and does not lend itself to extraction, as langstroth frames do. A bottling bucket is a worthwhile investment ($30.00) with mesh strainers, and a large colander that can sit in the top of the bucket is almost indispensable, but that can be purchased at a thrift or discount store. Keep old jars and lids for the honey! Large tubs with lids are quite handy for collecting comb from the hive. The lid is important to keep the bees out. It is real handy to have two people working the hive at harvest - one to open and close the tub lid and one to handle frames. The one breaking frames/comb into the bucket will get honey all over their gloves and on everything they touch - good to have a second set of hands to work the bucket. Large barbeque type spatulas and small kitchen spatulas are handy for harvesting comb from the hive and working with it while bottling. For containers, try to stick with plastic and glass. Stainless is okay for processing, but try not to let the honey sit on it for mopre than a day without cleaning. Aluminum, cast iron and other metals should be avoided - they can react with the pH of the honey.
[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/0_top_bar_extraction.jpg[/img]

Hope this helps. You do have to be careful when looking through supplier catalogs. We can all get taken in by gadgets. Most of them are good, but they are really only cost-effective when doing this for profit and on a large scale.

The first year I kept bees - about 10 years ago in Indiana, I had no processing gear. To get the honey out I would cut the comb up into a large 13x9 glass pan and put it in the oven at a low heat. The wax would melt and the honey would get runny, separating on its own. It is a slow process. The dead bees, wax and impurities would float to the top. When the pan cooled the wax could be broken and removed. The honey was bottled and the wax collected. This was a painstakingly slow process, but I didn't have much honey to work with. I still use this method for purifying wax. The is a tremendous amount of wax harvested with top bar hives. After wringing all the honey out of the comb that I can, the wax in the colander and mesh strainer are placed in the 13x9 glass pan and put in the oven at low heat. The amounts of honey that separate are much smaller than when I did this on comb, but significant. This honey is collected over the course of the purification and labeled as "stout". It is not sold but used by us for beverage sweetener and in baking/cooking. A plastic spatula helps for scraping honey off the bottom of the wax.

The wax is again collected and melted in a double boiler. I use a large pyrex measuring cup - 2 quart - sitting in a sauce pan of water on the stove. Always use a double boiler for wax! Some honey, propolis and other impurities settle from the wax. Sometimes it is necessary to skim impurities off the top of the wax, but generally it is getting pretty clean by this point. You can pour peroxide into the wax at this point, if you wish, to purify the wax. This makes a layer between the honey and heavier impurities, and the wax and lighter impurities. I prefer some impurities in the wax because it keeps the smell of the hive - makes for good candles.

When the wax is fairly clean, I pour cakes of wax. I purchased a non-stick cupcake pan at dollar general or fred's and use that for pouring cakes of wax. When they cool, they are ready for storage until needed. Wax is good for candles, soap, as a lubricant in some applications and probably has uses in dozens of other areas that I haven't messed with. As you start fiddling with it, you will see where enough honey collects to be worth saving and where you are working with wax and the honey/propolis, etc. are not significant enough to bother with. It is a matter of heating, cooling and scraping impurities. Eventually you will wind up with a sludge that must be discarded. Towards the end the sludge contains carmelized honey - never use carmelized honey as bee food - it is toxic to the bees.

Regards,
Pat

I found a place about 1 hour away from me for $70 for a 3 pound pack. I know the risk of losing the bees but I'm hoping to be proactive in feeding them fondant and protein packs. I've found a good source of materials, but I do need to pick up suit/mask and a smoker. I figure I have a bit of time to save up for them.

BTW, I've read that some burned propolis and wax can entice feral bees to a new hive. Have you heard of this or tried it??

We were really fortunate in that we ran into Kent Williams, the president of the Lake Barkley Beekeepers’ Association. He has a bee farm down in Mississippi and makes regular trips from Mississippi to Lake Barkley, Ky. We meet him on the road and buy our packages from him while he is in-route.

I had the same problem a few years ago when we started. In recent years there had been announcements that the post office was no longer taking bees for shipping. Either that has changed, or the other carriers are picking up the slack. There is a supplier in East Tennessee that ships, but the cost is prohibitive. I forget how they send them - FedEx or one of the other carriers.

We are also fortunate to live in the South. I was looking at bee farms in Mississippi and other places within a reasonable drive. I figured max I'd want to do is a one day drive - half a day there and half a day back. That's when we stumbled across Kent, a lucky break for us.

I'm not sure where you're located, but this would be the following preferences, in order of increasing expense and hassle:

1) Go to a local orchard or local bee keeper and see if he will sell you a split or a nuc. I got my forst bees from a local orchard when I was living in Indiana. Wineries may be worth checking too - some of them have fruit trees and depend on bees heavily for pollination.
2) Look for a local bee-keeper's organization. They will take shipment of bees every spring. You can get in on an order - they may not even require membership, though these organizations are a great source of information.
3) If no local organization, look to the nearest bee supplier. Dadant and Sons is one of the oldest and has stores all over the country. There may be one near you. AI Root is another one, but you don't hear much about them anymore. Brushy Mountain, in the Appalachians of North Carolina, is a good one. Lapp's is in Wisconsin. Western Bee Supplies in Montana, etc. Depends on your location. But you better get a move on - they might have early ordering.
4) Drive to pick up the bees. Again, without knowing your location, I don't know if this is practical for you. Bee farms are usually in the south - Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida. Don't know how far west they go. I know the further west, the greater the threat of africanized bees. But there are a lot of beekeepers in Arizona and California - the almond crop is heavily dependent on bee pollination.
5) Order from a bee farm and have them shipped. The freight can double the cost of a package. I paid $60 for a package, shipping could add another $30-$50 per package.

I hope this helps. #1 and #2 are to be preferred. They may even be a shorter drive than options #3 and #4. #5 is a last resort of desperation.

If this is your first time with bees, consider that you may lose you first hive. The possibilities of this decrease over the years, but you're never really out of the woods. We lost on package the first year hear.

Please do keep us up to date with your experiences - your successes and failures - we all learn from them.

Regards,
Pat

Who do you order your bees from, and do they ship?

[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/swarm3.jpg[/img]
[b]The swarm is the dark spot in the trees, near the top of the picture, to the right of center[/b]

I have never trapped a swarm before – read about it, but never had the opportunity. I made a couple of mistakes. My readings had told me that a swarm is different from a hive – bees get aggressive when the hive is disturbed. Smoke works well to keep them occupied and calmed down, but a swarm has no hive and smoke is not as useful. Since I’m pretty inexperienced, my wife decided it would be a good idea if I put on protective clothing. She dressed up also, in case someone had to describe my injuries to 911. My thinking was to climb the ladder; cut away the parts of the branches extending past the swarm, put the bucket shaped body of the trap under and around the swarm, and then cut the branches between the swarm and the tree with the branches resting on the rim of the trap body. I had even stapled a scrap of window screen over the trap entrance to contain the swarm until I had it hanging in the hootch. Sounded like a good idea. I was very careful to hold the branches while the ends were being cut off so they wouldn’t spring up and fling bees off the branch – so far so good. I raised the trap body up, containing the swarm and supporting the branch and then cut the branch loose. When the swarm came in contact with the trap body they immediately began crawling all around it, including the outside – where I had it hugged against my chest. While climbing down the ladder I must have squashed a bee between me and the trap because I felt a sting on my chest.

I got down to the ground, set the trap body down, and left the area. The bees were starting to get riled up in the dark and I had a bunch of them trying to find the sting. When a bee stings, it releases an alert pheromone. The alert pheromone tells the other bees there is a threat and they should also sting. Typically, a sting is handled by smoking the spot. The smoke covers the pheromone and stops the alert behavior. I had to fetch my smoker and douse myself pretty well to get rid of the bees that had pursued me to the house. Some of you more experienced beekeepers may find this funny, but I have been around long enough to not get panicky about a few angry bees. I was just glad most of the swarm wasn’t following me.

By the time I returned to the swarm they were calming down a little. I gave the branch a good shake, brushed as many bees inside as possible, and closed the lid on the trap. The trap was hung in the hootch and entrance feeder with sugar syrup was placed nearby, then the window screen pulled loose from the trap entrance. They must have been pretty well clustered in the trap because only one or two bees fell out when the screen was removed.

[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/swarm2_shanty_built.jpg[/img]
[b]hootch made of scrap roofing and a little wood. Keeps the swarm trap out of the rain and weather.[/b]

The next two days we got to work building a new top-bar. Feeling pretty sure of myself, having trapped a swarm and built one of these hives before, I tried going from memory without consulting Kelly’s article again. Where we were so painstaking on the first hive, I got careless and made a few rookie mistakes. The first one was that I bought a sheet of ½” plywood. The hive is lighter, but ½” plywood edges are difficult to get a screw into. There were a lot of botched screw holes. The second is that I did not have the pieces oriented correctly, so I had scraps too small to for the longer pieces. After that I drew the layout in Figure 1 for future reference. Because we were rushed, we didn’t make the gingerbread cuts on the roof and painting will be strictly for weather-proofing the hive, not decoration. In two days we had the hive completed. Tony, the friend that helped last time with his planer and table saw, had given me an old table saw and I was able to do all the work on the top-bars myself. We used 3 pieces of 2x4 stud, ripping each piece 3 times, then shaving for the 1 3/8” bar width. Bars were cut from these rips, and kerfs sawed into them. We also made some slight modifications to dimensions. I have a nice entrance feeder that holds a quart, so we worked to make the entrance and feeder fit better, taking advantage of the feeder as an entrance reducer. The results are satisfactory.

It took three days to make the new hive: two days to construct and paint the body and a day to make top bars and the partition. The work was completed and we waited for darkness to actually perform the hiving. Our thinking was the bees would be clustered for the night. We smoked the swarm trap, driving stragglers and sentry bees into the trap, then stapled window screen over the entrance to contain the bees. The trap was set aside and the hootch was removed from the hive stand. The new hive was put in place and an error in the construction was found – the base supports were off and would not straddle the horizontal posts of the hive stand. Fortunately all the hives were bedded down, and since the swarm trap was contained; we could stopper the smoker, shed our protective gear and make the repairs. After the hive was situated we suited back up and restarted the smoker. The new hive was prepared to receive the swarm by removing the first 10 top bars. A partition was put in place at the 11th bar position. The trap was given a little more smoke and the lid pulled off. In just three days the swarm had built comb 3 or 4 inches long inside the trap. The bees were shaken from the body of the trap into the hive and the lid was brushed into the hive. The new comb was fragile and broke, so it was left in the bottom of the hive for the time being. The comb was the most probable location of the queen and we wanted to be sure she was hived. A pheromone lure used in the swarm trap was thrown behind the partition. A full entrance feeder was put into place also.

[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/swarm_hiving.jpg[/img]

Working with bees can be an exercise in futility. We wanted them inside the hive, but the bees had other plans. As when they were trapped, they crawled over every surface area they came in contact with. We kept applying smoke to discourage them from leaving the hive interior, but that was only about halfway effective. While my friend worked the smoker, I brushed bees back into the hive and replaced top bars. After the roof was replaced, we brushed bees off each other and returned to the house. It could have been worse – during the day there would have been a lot more bees flying. After an hour or so the hive was checked again. There were a good number of bees on the outside, around the entrance and feeder, and a few clusters were present on the trap parts, left lying on the ground in front of the new hive. The next day these stragglers outside the hive had either rejoined their mates in the new top-bar or had been absorbed by some of the other hives. The real question at this point was would they stay or abscond. They had been disturbed mightily in the course of three days.

Managing a top-bar hive is different from management of langstroth hives. First off, as mentioned before, the top-bar hive is a single level. Whereas the queen can just move up to the next brood chamber if the frames surrounding her are filled with honey, in a top-bar she can become “honey-bound”. Part of management is to be sure there is empty comb for the queen to lay eggs. Brood comb will be the closest to the entrance. The fragile comb of a top-bar hive will not do well with being moved; if you want to move hives around to pollinate crops for farmers, you better get a langstroth hive.

Harvesting is a bit different too – you can’t run top-bar comb through an extractor. Extractors can blow out a frame of comb, and frames are supported on all 4 sides. Top-bar comb is only supported on one side – the top – and can be extremely fragile when new. Top-bar comb is most immediately useable for cut-comb. To make liquid honey you will need to crush the comb in a strainer (easily made and available from bee suppliers). The real disadvantage of these hives, along with the management issues listed above, is that bees must make new comb after harvest. This expends a lot of energy on their part and accounts, mostly, for the lower honey production of a top-bar when compared to a langstroth. But there is also an advantage to this situation – you will harvest more beeswax with a top-bar than you would with a langstroth.

Working the hive can be a challenge. When inspecting the hive, start at the rear (honey comb) and work your way forward. The bees are most disturbed when you mess with the brood. This holds true for langstroth hives also. Inspections of brood are kept to a minimum – most inspections are to see if honeycomb in the supers are ready to harvest. With a top-bar you have the additional responsibility of ensuring the queen is not honey-bound, a condition easier to come by in a top-bar. Keep a brush handy because you will be brushing a lot of bees back into the hive. It is best to keep enough top-bars in place so most of the hive is dark. You can’t really do that with a langstroth – when you open the lid you let in light that goes right to the bottom of the hive. With every piece of a langstroth body you remove, the light levels increase, along with the disturbances to the colony.

When I put the partition in the first hive, I did it the quickest way I could. I used wooden spline to staple window screen into the hive. I found I like being able to look into the hive through the screen and when we made a partition for the new hive we did it by constructing a wooden frame and stretching window screen across it. The first partition is all but useless – it has to be removed to open up the hive. The second partition (see picture) is more what Kelly had in mind – something that could be moved around the hive, interchangeable with the top-bars. I find the frame and screen is easier to construct than cutting a piece of plywood to fit the angles of the hive body. I will construct another screen type partition for the first hive before opening the rest of the body to the colony. The partition will be used at the end of the season (after the drones are cast out) to consolidate the colony and give them less real-estate to defend. When the population builds up again next season, the partition can again be moved to the back of the hive, giving the colony more room to make honey.

There are a lot of benefits to keeping bees. They are good for the garden and fruit trees; not only you, but the whole neighborhood will benefit. You can’t feel more in tune with the seasons, watching the pollens that foragers are bringing back to the hive. If you don’t get excited about gardening now, bees will drag you into their world and make you conscious of what is blooming and what is fruiting. Even corn and other plants that don’t rely on bees for pollination is fair game for foragers bringing pollen back to the hive. That was a revelation to me – watching foragers harvesting pollen packets from corn tassels. You also learn about other plants, like gourds, that only open blossoms at night so that moths can pollinate them. I don’t find gardens as boring as I did a decade ago.

Bees are having a rough time of it now. Large pollinator, bee rearing and honey producing outfits are seeing record numbers of colony failures. So far there is no decisive cause. It might be a good idea to add bees to your holdings. Even if you only harvest a minimal amount of honey, the benefits of on-site pollinators will increase your yields. The products of the hive are valuable and expensive. I wouldn’t recommend going into this with the idea of becoming your regional bee-king or queen, there are folks that have been doing this for generations. Full time bee keeping is as hard an area of agriculture as any to work in. But hive products are a luxury that you can produce at home and just another matter of self-reliance. There are also a lot of health benefits for you. My wife swears by local honey as a way to desensitize allergies. I don’t have allergies, so I can only take her word for it. But she’s not alone – there are a lot of people that subscribe to this belief. There are also a lot of people that swear bee venom provides relief to arthritis and the symptoms of MS. That’s way out of my area of experience, but that many people make you wonder if there’s something to it. Tea made from propolis (the bee glue) is also supposed to have medicinal effects. But I’m just a simple fellow – I like having bees around and I trust my honey more than the stuff at Wal-Mart. I also prefer it to cane sugar as a sweetener for breads, coffee, sauces, etc. and trust it a lot more than the chemicals in common use as sweeteners today.

Why on earth would anyone want to fiddle with a hive that is more difficult to manage? Well, price and ease of construction are what got me. I no longer have to depend on a supplier to get hive parts. Most langstroth hive bodies hold 10 frames. These frames have to observe bee space or the bees will glue it to the hive body. There are 4 parts to a frame, so 40 pieces have to be cut with enough precision to make it work. Construction of this type of hive is not impossible, but they lend themselves more to mass-production. I can also make a hive in a few days to react to a swarm, whereas I would have to either keep surplus hives on standby or wait on a supplier to ship me parts. Results at this time are promising. I’ll let you know how the harvest goes. Until then, I’ll see you around the user forum.

Addendum – 7/28/08

We have just completed harvest of the two langstroth hives. This year we pulled 39 frames of finished comb, which resulted in over 13 gallons of honey bottled in quart and pint jars. The price of honey in stores right now justifies $8.00 per quart and $5.00 per pint. We also packaged 18 boxes of comb.

Sadly, the first top-bar hive that started all this is not as active and robust as I would hope. On the other hand, the captured swarm in the second top-bar hive appears to be the best hive in the yard! We won’t see the quantities in harvest that the langstroths provided, but this is extremely encouraging. Our little bee yard is running out of room and we have plans to start another one on the back of the property. This one will be all top-bar hives. If it takes three or four top-bar hives to produce the honey of two langstroth hives, I’ll be happy. Again, the cost of making these hives and the speed with which they can be constructed provides the real benefit. With a large enough population of bees, swarms can successfully populate these hives and I expect to be selling them in the next few years.

More efficient wax processing has been a recent occupation. We will be harvesting the top-bar hives next, providing a real need for effective handling of wax. Cappings and broken comb scraps are placed in a 13x9 glass pan and baked in the oven at a low heat – about 200 degrees or less. This allows the honey and wax to separate. When the pan is cool a sheet of wax can be lifted from the pan. The bottom of this sheet scraped with a spatula to remove the bulk of the honey and impurities sticking to it, and the honey remaining can be scraped into a strainer. The honey retrieved is labeled as “stout” because it has been heated. It is kept separate from the pure honey and kept for our use in cooking and as a general sweetener – we never sell that as honey. The wax sheet is broken into pieces and melted in a double boiler for use in candles, soap and other products.

When melting wax in the double boiler, sludge settles on the bottom. This sludge accumulates and will eventually leave little room for wax. We purchased a non-stick cupcake pan at Fred’s and now use that to pour cakes of wax. When the wax firms up in the pan, it is placed in the freezer. When frozen, these cakes can be popped out of the pan and set aside. The wax is by no means pure. It can be purified with hydrogen peroxide, but we prefer to keep the small amount of impurities remaining. It seems to add to the fragrance of the beeswax when it burns – smelling more like the inside of a hive, rather than the inside of a cathedral. When the level of the wax is close to the level of the sludge, boiling water is poured into the melted wax, floating the wax off of the bulk of the impurities. When this is cool, the hardened wax is removed, scraped for impurities, and the sludge disposed of.

In Closing…

Looking back, it seems necessary to add a disclaimer. I am not a skillful or professional beekeeper, nor am I a farmer. There are professionals out there that work hard to provide pollination and bring honey to the table. I am just a fellow with enough room to keep bees. I have read enough to be dangerous, but have a good wife that keeps me from doing anything foolish. We view the bees in the same light as our poultry or garden – they are a way that we can use nature to provide us with food and materials. I hope this long-winded account of our experiences will encourage people to try this fascinating pursuit, increasing the number of honeybees in the county and helping to ensure their continued survival.

Regards,
Pat

The notches on the edges of the roof - strictly ornamental, gave the impression of a gingerbread house. With all the blank painted lumber, I decided to decorate. Have seen simple bird houses that were jazzed up a little with paint, this is just a big bird house. Went to the crafts conferences and asked around, got steered to a few places and given a few terms to look up, and this is my first attempt at decorating with paint:

[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/hive_decorated_3.jpg[/img]
Front view

[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/hive_decorated_2.jpg[/img]
From the front

[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/hive_decorated_1.jpg[/img]
From the rear

Getting the yard ready for bees - three packages coming in next weekend. Cap stones for the langstroth hives, and timbers for the top-bar. Hoping the top-bar works, left room to add more hives at a later date. Used two sacks of quickcrete to keep the posts in. Measured comfortable waist-high level to make it convenient to work on the hive - just a little over three feet from the ground to the to top of the hive. Decided to leave the langstroths on the ground - don't think hive bodies will get piled too high, but the son-of-a-guns can get so heavy on such a small footprint, I'd rather bend over than have the hives topple.

A few t-posts and chicken wire to keep the dogs, chickens and other critters from stumbling into the hives.

The spot is high ground, morning sun, facing east southeast. Stands have a slight slope forward for draining condensation to the entrance.

(mozilla/firefox right-click and view image for larger picture)
[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/beeyardinmorningsun2.jpg[/img]

Got inspired by Jarrett D. Kelly's article "Build a top-bar beehive" (Nov/Dec 2005, issue #96). Materials needed were 1 sheet 3/4" plywood ($26), 3 pieces 2x4 ($2.99 ea), scrap lumber on hand, 1 5/8" screws and 1" screws, 3/4" nails, primer, paint and wood glue (all on hand). Tools: jigsaw, circular saw, electric drill. Work on top bars done by a friend with a table saw and planer.

(mozilla and firefox users - right click on picture and select View Image to see larger picture)
[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/beehive1ends.jpg[/img]
Cut the ends first. We tried to follow directions. Some dimensions didn't quite jive. Now that we know what we are doing and how pieces fit together, we can shoot from the hip.

[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/beehive1spacers.jpg[/img]
3/16" spacers on ends to maintain bee space between ends and first & last top bar.

[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/beehive2sidesandbottom.jpg[/img]
Assembled hive body.

[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/beehive3roofandbottom1.jpg[/img]
Completed hive body and roof ready for painting.

[img]http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/beehive3roofandbottompainted3.jpg[/img]
First coat of paint. Top bars made - holds 32 top bars as promised.

Left to do - spline (already cut from scrap lumber and waiting) glued into kerf on bottom side of top bars. Paint spline with bee's wax to encourage bees to draw comb.

Bees arrive on the 14th of April, will put bees wax on just before installing bees so the wax moths don't get to it first.

More pictures when we get the top bars ready, the base built, and bees installed. We will also be running two conventional Langstroth hives too - didn't want to jump into top-bar hives without covering my bet.

Figure total cost for materials around $30 - maybe more if paint and screws were not already on-hand. Pessimistically, maybe $50 for a new hive. Compare to $150-$200 for a new Langstroth.

Took about two days to build - I'm no carpenter. But with one done, I think I could do it in a day (not counting paint).

Last year I came across an article by Jarrett D. Kelly in a back issue of Backwoods Home Magazine (#96) titled ”Build a top-bar beehive“. I had heard of top bar hives – they get a lot of use in third world countries for starting out beekeeping businesses in small villages. They are simple in design and construction and let the bees do most of the work. Rather than a bewildering assortment of hive bodies, supers, frames, etc., a top-bar hive is a long box in which the bees build comb than hangs freely from the top bars. The bees follow their own inclination when building comb, rather than the beekeeper trying to keep them within the bounds of the frame. No matter how careful the beekeeper is, bees will build burr and bridge comb between frames and the inside cover, and depending on the species, glue shut every opening in the hive. All this on your nice, new $150 hive. Don’t get me wrong, none of this stuff is impossible to deal with, and just makes beekeeping that much more interesting – trying to manage the bees.

Well, if you are looking for specific dimensions in Kelly’s article, you won’t find all of them. A pattern and dimensions are provided for the ends of the hive and roof, and dimensions are given for the width of the bars and length of the hive, but he doesn’t spell everything out for you. This is a good thing. If all parts were specified to strict tolerances, it would be easy to botch the job by being off on one cut. My accuracy with wood working is not the best, so it all worked out well. The trick is to get the end pieces cut accurately, then measure and cut from those end pieces. This being our first attempt at building a top-bar hive, we were a bit pain staking about following the directions.

We used the following materials:
one sheet (8’x4’) of plywood, ¾” thick – purchased for $26 at the local hardware store
one piece of scrap lumber (1x4) cut into two 58” lengths
three pieces of inexpensive 2x4 studs for top bars
Elmer’s carpenter glue
1 5/8” exterior screws
1” exterior screws
a hand full of ¾” nails
primer, paint and a little silicone caulk.

The plywood and 2x4 were the only purchases; we had all of the materials on hand already. Tools used were a jig saw, circular saw, auger and brace, drill and tack hammer.
A neighbor had a planer and table saw, and was kind enough to do a little work on the top-bars. A table saw alone is enough to do all the top-bar work. Figure 1 shows the basic layout of parts to be cut from a single piece of plywood. Orientation of these parts is important to keep all parts within one sheet.

[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/000_Figure_1_rough_layout_for_sheet.jpg[/img]
Figure 1 – rough layout for (1) 8’x4’x3/4” Sheet of Plywood
1 – cut Hive Body Ends – 120º angle on sides. Cut 1 ½” from small side of one piece for entrance.
2 – cut Hive Body Bottom Board – 30º bevel on both long sides.
3 – cut Hive Body Sides – 30º bevel on both long sides. Cut 1 inch shorter than long side of hive body ends (#1).
4 – build Hive Body – Add 1x4 handles, cut lengths to extend 8 inches past both ends of hive body. Add 3/16” spacers inside Hive Ends.
5 – cut Hive Roof Gables – should rest within handles, wide part of gable should meet handle tops.
6 – cut hive roof supports – long enough for gables to rest outside hive body – allow 1/8 to 3/16 inch slop for paint.
7 – cut Hive Roof Panels – allow for overhang on sides of hive and front and back of hive.
8 – Hive Roof Caps – 30º bevel between the two pieces.
9 – build Hive Roof - supports between gables, flush with edges of gables. Hive Roof Panels, bead of silicone caulk in gap at peak. Hive Roof Cap join at 30º bevel.


1) Hive Body End Pieces

Kelly provides a template for then end pieces of the hive body and roof. The hive body is a trapezoid measuring 20 ¼” across the base and 12 ½” in height. The angles from the base are given as 120º degrees (60º on the opposite corner) and supposed to result in a narrow end of 6” across. I measured the angles with an inexpensive plastic protractor. The narrow end was less than six inches. Getting a six inch base with the base and height supplied by Kelly was the first problem. It was probably an error on my part, but it was the best result we could get. The hive body end pieces were cut from the plywood using a jig saw. The first end piece was used as a template to cut the second end piece. At this starting point, we weren’t sure if the sheet would be enough for the entire project, so we did our best to reduce waste and maximize the plywood. The narrow end of one of the end pieces is cut off to provide the bee entrance on the hive. Kelly’s diagram shows 1 ½”, the article text called for 1 5/8”. This eighth inch seems like a trifling difference, but the thickness of the plywood and considerations for bee space (3/8”) raised a red flag. Fortunately, the entrance is not as crucial as the space between frames, as in a Langstroth hive. Figure 2 shows the hive end piece.

[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/000_Figure_2_hive_body_end.jpg[/img]

Bottom Board and Sides

Working with blind faith, we cut a bottom board six inches wide and 48” in length, as recommended by Kelly. A bevel of 30 degrees was also recommended for the long sides of the bottom board. We did this with a circular saw because it was a straight cut and our jig saw could not make this bevel. With the exception of the angled end pieces, all other sides of the hive are straight cuts, and lend themselves well to cutting with the circular saw. Since my narrow side of the end piece was not six inches we wound up trimming about an inch and a half off of both our end pieces. The next time we do this, we will use the narrow end of our end pieces as the measurement for the bottom board width.

Next, a spacer of 3/16” x ¾” was to be attached to the inside of each end piece. There weren’t any pictures of this spacer, so we carefully read the article to be sure we were doing it correctly. Shaving 3/16” off of a piece of plywood with a jigsaw is not the easiest thing in the world to do. After two tries, I got a piece long enough and even enough to use. The spacer goes across the inside of each end piece, along the base or 20 ¼” side of the end piece, and provides bee space between the ends and first and last top-bars. The spacers were put on with glue and ¾” nails. Surprisingly the nails did not split the plywood.

The sides were recommended at 12 5/16” wide and 44 9/16” in length. The length was given as crucial to hold thirty-two top-bars, each 1 3/8 inch wide. The cuts on the sides were also to be beveled at 30 degrees. I could see the sides of the hive would have been better suited to a width over 14 inches, but this was our first time and we were trying to follow directions. I have to give Kelly credit, the beveled edges fit together better than anything I’ve ever tried to make. The next time we do this, we will use the end pieces as the measurement of side width. The sides are supposed to span the distance between the bottom board and the spacers. It’s not quite as tall as the sides of the end pieces – the handles allow a gap so that the top bars can rest on the top edge of the plywood sides (see photographs).

We attached the bottom board and sides to the back end piece. The front end piece has the bottom removed as an entrance, and the bottom board extends past the front end piece as a landing area for the bees. Past experiences with plywood makes me extremely cautious about nailing the edges of plywood. I had no desire to split the sheets and weaken the structure. We used a drill to make pilot holes and drive 1 5/8” screws for fasteners. Kelly, likewise, recommends the use of screws. In addition, we used wood glue on each joint. Once the sides and bottom board were attached to the back end piece, the structure was very sturdy and the front end piece could be attached.

At this point, the ends of the spacers are trimmed and the handles are attached. Kelly recommended two inch wide pieces of plywood. It may have been strong enough, but I preferred a piece of 1x4 scrap lumber I had handy. The length turned out to be about 58” for each handle. This allowed the pieces to extend six inches past the ends of the hive body, convenient for moving or carrying the hive – eight inches would have been better. There was an obvious shortcoming in the width of the sides – I should have gone with my gut-instinct and cut the width at 14 inches. But, on the plus side, the 1x4 handles would fix the shortcoming and make a stronger handle than plywood. Looking back, we might have run out of plywood if we didn’t use scrap lumber. The handles should come flush with the wide side of the end piece and still provide some overlap with the plywood sides. The handles were attached with wood glue and one inch screws (after drilling pilot holes). The one inch screws were just barely long enough, the 1 5/8” screws would have been too long. To increase the bite the one inch screw had, I took a larger drill bit and made a shallow recess for the screw heads in the plywood, so the one inch screw would bite deeper into the handles.

Roof

Next was the roof. Having learned our lesson, we measured the distance between the handles, across the top of the hive body. That would be our wide dimension for the roof gables, or end pieces – 20 ¼”. Kelly recommended 7” in height, so we drew a box 20 ¼” x 7”, found the vertical center, marked a horizontal line two inches from the bottom, and drew in the shape. The sides of the hive were a 120º angle, so the protractor was used for the bottom 2” of the roof. See Figure 3.

[img]http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk217/patandkaren/000_Figure_3_roof_gable.jpg[/img]

The gables fit well between the handles. Measurement between the gables, plus 1/8 “ inch to allow for paint, gave us the length for 4 plywood strips, 3 inches wide, to attach between the gables. The exact location of these strips is not too important, so long as they do not interfere with how the roof sits on the hive, and provide support for the roof. As Kelly pointed out, the roof could be a simple piece of tin or plywood, lying flat on the hive top, but I really liked the looks of his roof and followed the pattern to some extent. Rather than cutting a lot of pieces to make the roof, as he did, requiring tar paper to weather proof the roof, we cut two pieces of plywood and notched it to get the same “ginger-bread house” effect. The plywood was 51” in length, allowing for a two inch overhang at each end, and thirteen inches wide, allowing for a generous overhang on each side. The notches were ½” deep and 1” wide, made at three inch intervals. It gave the same basic effect. These roof pieces were attached to the gables with 1 5/8” screws from the outside, and 1” screws from the inside. Glue was applied between the plywood strips and the back of the roofing panels.

The roofing panels were straight cut – no bevel. This left a gap along the peak of the roof. I filled this gap with a bead of silicone. As per the article, two small strips of plywood (about 1-2 inches wide) were cut with a 30 degree bevel, and matched up nicely along the peak of the roof. These were attached with wood glue and 1” screws. Using an old auger and brace, holes were bored into each gable for ventilation. Scraps of screen were attached to the inside using wood scraps, glue and ¾” nails. We primed and painted the outside (you never paint the inside of a hive). That pretty much completed construction of the hive. A simple affair, and with lessons learned, I think I could do it in a day. As it was, we took about two days, taking our time and tending to other chores around the yard. Using 1 ¼” screws might simplify construction also, but I wouldn’t run out and by them unless the 1” screws had run out.

Unlike a conventional Langstroth hive, where hive bodies are stacked one on top of the other, a top-bar hive does not give the bees access to the space above the top-bars. In a conventional hive, the bees need this access because it leads to more frames. The top-bar hive is all on a single level, so this access is not a requirement. If the bees could get into this space, they would fill it with burr comb and propolis (bee glue) – it is a large empty space. This makes it crucial for the top bars to fit together closely enough to prevent bees from getting into the roof area.

The top-bars were supposed to be 1 3/8” wide – this affects bee space. Most store bought 2x2 and 2x4 is around 1 ½” thick. Pricing eight foot lengths of 2x2 I found they cost almost as much as 2x4, so we picked up three 2x4’s. A friend of mine has a planer and table saw, and cut the top-bars for me. First, he planed the boards to a thickness of 1 3/8”. The boards were then ripped on a table saw, resulting in six boards 1 3/8” x 1 7/8”. The cut sides were the most square, so they were used as the bottom surface of the top bars. Next, a ½” slot was cut along the length of these boards. This slot, or kerf, will receive the spline (a thin piece of wood) that will serve as the foundation for the top-bar hive. We made spline by shaving scrap lumber with the table saw. The spline is just wide enough to fit into the kerf with a little coaxing from a rubber mallet and trimming by whittling the edge with a utility knife. When the spline fits, a little elmer’s glue holds them in permanently. Once the glue on all the top bars has dried, the spline is painted with bees-wax. I had some old bees wax candles with burned out wicks. Chips from the old candles were melted in a pyrex measuring cup sitting in a pot of boiling water.

For those of you interested in trying your hand at beekeeping, but put off by the cost of hives, you have a number of ways to go. 1) You can look for used gear at auctions and such – often to be found at tremendous savings. 2) You can make your own hives, a task way beyond my own meager skills and sparsely tooled shop. 3) You can make a top-bar hive.

1) There are a few drawbacks to buying used. One is that you don’t know why the previous owner got out of it. Could be the hives all died from foulbrood or some other disease. This can be treated by lightly charring the interior of hive bodies. I don’t know about the frames. This is not generally recommended amongst professionals in my readings, but there is a big difference between ideal conditions outlined in various texts and practical, real life situations. If you do go this route, you will still be going to suppliers for frames, foundation and other supplies.
2) I once asked a carpenter to give me an estimate on building hives. He made bird houses for a feed store I worked for, so was quite flexible about projects. He couldn’t come anywhere near the prices of the hive parts sold by the suppliers. They have machinery that has been set up to make langstroth hive components and are working with economies of scale – they sell so many millions of units that they make back the investment in equipment. If you have a lot of time and can work to tolerances, maybe this is for you.
3) If you are like me, then maybe you should look at top-bar hives. These are simple hives often used in third world countries to get a beekeeping industry established. These are simple and relatively inexpensive structures. They don’t have a lot of the features found in langstroth hives, but their cost and ease of construction makes them ideal for the self-reliant type folk out there.

The following posts will go into detail on constructing a top-bar hive. We have two langstroth hives and two top-bar hives. We had a bit of trouble the first year, but the top bar hives are doing so well that we are building them as needed to capture swarms.