This web page and its links contain the first information that I received from Paul Magnuson about beekeeping in top-bar hives. He has graciously given me permission to post these files to this website. The work of Paul and others at the Honeybee Research Unit of the Agriculture Research Council , Plant Protection Res. Inst. of Pretoria, South Africa is gratefully acknowledged.
I am hopeful that you will find the files as instructive and useful as I have found them.
The hive comprises a box roughly 85cm long, roughly 30cm deep,and 50.5cm wide. The interior width (the distance between the side walls inside the hive) should be exactly 46.5cm. The sides and floor of the box are made from planks of inexpensive timber or similar material. The five planks comprising the box should be securely fastened to one another, since the occupied hive is very heavy and considerable forces are applied to the hive box when inspecting the colony. Holes are drilled int the long sides of the box, about 10cm apart, and about 5cm above the floor. These should be about 10 to 12mm in diameter. They serve as entrances.
The roof is made up of separate wood slats, each exactly 32mm wide [ed. note: 35mm for Italian honeybees], of the same length as the width of the box, and roughly 20mm thick. A few more slats should be made than are needed to cover the box. Each slat should have a slot cut into it. The slot runs lengthwise along the middle of each slat. A narrow strip of hardboard should be glued into each slot, so that it projects about 10mm from the bottom surface of each slat. The hardboard strip should be shorter than the slat by a little more than twice the thickness of the planking used for the box. Position the strip in the middle of the slot so that it does not touch either side of the box when the slat is placed on top of the box, with the strip hanging down into the hive.
The exterior of the hive box (but not the slats) should be well protected with coats of light-coloured paint. Allow sufficient time for the paint smell to disappear before attempting to put bees into the hive.
A waterproof lid of plastic or metal should be used to cover the closed hive. Especially if the lid is made of metal, ensure that it does not lie directly on the top-bars (slats), since these might then become so hot that the combs hanging from them melt. Instead, cover the top bars with a layer of straw or other good insulating material, and place the waterproof lid over this. Alternatively, use wooden logs as spacers between the top bars and the waterproof lid; in winter, cover the top bars with old (pesticide-free) sacks for insulation.
Top-bar hives are presently virtually unknown in South Africa. There is therefore not much locally available information about this style of beekeeping. Although the basic principles are the same as those for beekeeping in conventional (Langstroth-type) hives, a few pointers might be in order.
The most important difference between Langstroth and top-bar hives is the absence of gaps between the top-bars in top-bar hives. Langstroth hives have gaps between the top bars of the frames containing the combs, since the bees must move vertically through the hive. The problem with these gaps is that, upon opening the hive, every bee in the colony is exposed to light, sounds, smells, air currents, temperature changes etc. They are therefore aware of the apparently catastrophic damage to their nest, and react defensively. In Europe, where Langstroth-type hives were initially developed, this posed no problem as their bees are generally far more placid than ours. However, especially since the `Africanized-bee' hysteria began sweeping through the Americas, most honeybee experts are convinced that our bee (the African bee Apis mellifera scutellata) is the most defensive (or aggressive, depending on your point of view) honeybee in the world.
The great advantage of the top-bar hive is that the top-bars form a continuous roof, without gaps. The beekeeper need make only a small opening in the hive for inspection or harvesting. Two or three of the top-bars are removed from one end of the hive. These will generally haveneither bees nor comb on them. This opening need be only wide enough to permit lifting the combs for inspection without bumping or scraping them. By successively moving each bar, he/she shifts the inspection gap gradually towards the brood nest (the heart of the colony) in the middle of the hive. By puffing A VERY SMALL AMOUNT of smoke into the opening, the bees can be driven away from the gap into the undisturbed part of the hive. One uses just enough smoke to "keep the bees' heads down." The bulk of the colony is thus never where the beekeeper is working, and remains relatively unaware of the disturbance. Once the inspection gap has reached the middle of the colony, the top-bars are carefully returned to their original positions, and pressed tightly against one another again. If the beekeeper wishes to continue with the inspection, the process is repeated from the other end of the hive. Alternatively the hive can be opened from the other end next time.
The vital point with top-bar hives, is the precise width of each top-bar 32 +/- 1 mm. [ed.note: 35mm for Italian bees] The reason is that this is exactly the distance between the centres of adjacent combs in naturally-built nests. Once the bees have built a comb neatly along the mid-line of one top-bar, they have a natural tendency to continue building combs along the mid-lines of adjacent top-bars without the beekeeper s having to resort to wax foundations, wires etc. However, to ensure neatly-built comb, one should make `starter-strips along the mid-lines of each top-bar. One can use hardboard (as indicated in the diagrams), or strips of wax foundation glued or melted into slots cut into the top-bars, or even simply a ridge of molten beeswax cast along each top-bar. We use two top-bars laid on top of a third (with about a 5 mm gap between them) to form a mould for the third bar, into which molten wax can easily be poured.
There is nothing special about the dimensions for the hive box itself. The only reason for those given in the diagrams is to allow a beekeeper to place a standard Langstroth super onto this hive, above standard Langstroth frames. These dimensions therefore allow for a transition from the one sort of beekeeping to the other, or for hiving a nucleus colony which is already on Langstroth brood frames. There is also no reason why one should not use Langstroth-type frames with modified top-bars in this hive.
There are several methods for getting bees into your hive. These generally hold for either Langstroth or top-bar hives. The easiest, but most time-consuming is to paint the inside of the hive with a solution of propolis in ammonia. Propolis is a gummy substance collected by bees from the resins exuded by plants. You could probably obtain it for free from beekeepers if you made yourself available to help with their hive inspections, and collected it as they removed it from their hive parts. Specialist suppliers of beekeeping equipment might also be able to supply it. Once the ammonia smell has evaporated, the propolis smell is irresistable to migratory reproductive swarms looking for cavities in which to settle. This is the reason why cavities from which bees have been removed are very quickly again occupied by swarms. This method is used by most beekeepers to trap trek swarms. There are synthetic lures which mimic the smell of propolis. One could also try a 50/50 mixture of citral and geraniol essential oils, or even melissa (bee balm) leaves.
The second method is to relocate an existing feral nest. Combs are cut out of the feral nest and tied onto your top-bars or into your frames with yarn. When fastening combs to top-bars, use a piece of newspaper or large leaf to prevent the yarn from cutting through the comb at the bottom. Another excellent idea, is beforehand to prepare sheets of chicken mesh twice the size of the intended comb size. This can be folded in half around the cut comb to form a cage, which can then be stapled to the top-bar. Once the bees have secured the combs to the top-bars, the yarn or mesh should be removed. As intimated above, one can also purchase nucleus colonies from beekeepers, or produce them by artificially swarming (splitting) existing colonies.
The greatest disadvantage of top-bars vis-a-vis frames is that the combs are not reinforced with wires, foundation sheets etc. For this reason, it is difficult to move such a hive, especially in a vehicle. It is also virtually impossible to use a centrifugal extractor to extract the honey. You will also have to be careful, when handling combs, that the comb remains in a vertical orientation. It will otherwise break off the top-bar. With some experience (and a few broken combs), this is not really a problem, and is in any event good practice, even for wired Langstroth frames (although most of us become complacent). Having to handle the combs carefully also has a very important advantage: it is impossible to work quickly with the bees. Working slowly and carefully is conducive to your developing a much better feel for your bees; you get fewer stings, and the bees become productive again more quickly. Many people assert that it takes a colony several hours, or even several days to recover from the shock of a rough inspection, and there is always the risk of inadvertently killing or maiming the queen.
Especially when compared with commercial scale honey harvesting and extraction, harvesting honey from a top-bar hive is very easy. You simply take along a clean plastic bucket (with a lid) when visiting your bees. Hold a ripe (more or less fully capped) honey comb over the open bucket, and twist the top-bar. The comb breaks off into the bucket, the top-bar is replaced, and the bucket is immediately closed. Especially at the end of the nectar flow, bees sometimes steal honey from other hives. Such robbing leads to much stinging, and can be initiated by a forager finding exposed honey in an apiary. (This is, incidentally, another advantage of the small opening created when inspecting a top-bar hive the chance of precipitating robbing is much smaller than when one must put an opened, unprotected honey super to one side while inspecting a Langstroth brood chamber.) The harvested honey combs are sorted out at home: the perfect combs for sale or presents, the rest for the family. Pollen in the comb is a definite bonus, as it is an excellent source of protein, and quite palatable. Even though I prefer the idea of brood emerging as adult bees, many people prize larvae as food. Even brood in the honey combs is therefore not necessarily a problem, except that it might indicate that too much honey has been removed from the hive. One should always leave at least one good food comb (honey and pollen) on either side of the brood nest for the bees own use.
You will sometimes harvest old combs. New comb is white and pleasant to eat, but older combs darken and toughen with age. This is especially true if that comb has been used for brood-rearing. The solution is to chop up the black combs, and strain the honey through coarse cloth on a sunny window sill. If you feel adventurous, you might even try making mead with the dilute honey solution resulting from sparging the residual honey that doesn t drain from the wax; this can also be refrigerated to feed the bees during the winter dearth. The wax should not be discarded it can be rendered in a solar wax extractor, for personal use or to be sold. There is usually a ready market in people who make and sell candles at flea markets. You might also approach local cobblers, seamstresses and cabinet makers.
James D. Satterfield email: jsatt@gsu.edu