Tee Bee What?

You might say, "I know what a beehive is; its one of those white boxes, about so big, that the bees live in and that the beekeeper stacks one on top of the other. What is a top bar hive and why would one use it"? And you should be forgiven for asking it because until fairly recently I would have asked the same thing.

With all due respect to Reverend Langstroth, his work, his contemporaries and his many, many followers, there is another way of keeping bees. But at first glance one wouldn't know it. Last Fall, when I first opened the door into the world of beekeeping, I found a tangible, if at first daunting world of multiple choice questions: "eight-frame boxes or ten-frame boxes"? "solid or IPM bottom board and with or without a slatted rack"? "wood frames with wax foundation or solid plastic frames"? and on and on and on. The catalogs are wonders to behold; every product you could ever need for beekeeping. If you have a problem, they have the products to fix it. And if that solution causes another problem, they'll sell you what you need to fix that, too.

I started wondering if I was going to be able to afford my new interest - and how the bees could have survived before the beekeepers and the catalog companies came to their rescue. Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against any of the companies that sell to beekeepers. I expect to buy plenty from them in the future. But a kludgey system is a kludgey system - whatever it is. The more I read about Langstroth hives the more they struck me as the products of a few key concepts (beespace, removeable combs, variable interior volume, etc) with many years of ad hoc, reactionary fixes to problems that cropped up along the way. I began imagining scenarios that might happen with my hives and what sort of solutions I might try to use - but always within the precept of a Langstroth hive.

Enter Conrad Bérubé. It could have been any of a number of beekeepers, but I encountered Conrad's work first so I credit him for introducing me to the Top Bar Hive.



Links to the whole film epic:
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 1 - starting a smoker
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 2 - smoking the hive
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 3 - moving hive for inspection
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 4 - propolis and medicinal uses of hive products
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 5 - handling comb (Seen above)
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 6 - comb and mild vs. wild strains of bees
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 7 - unwanted guests
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 8 - getting stung
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 9 - sealed cells
beekeeping with the Kenya Top Bar Hive 11 - thanks to Hubert