Attic For Top Bar Hive

It is a horizontal hive enabling beekeepers to inspect the entirety of the hive without moving heavy supers.

Attic for top bar hive.

The top bar hive is the oldest and most commonly used hive style in the world. With nine frames in the top box the vent is directly over the center top bar. Half inch plywood is cut to outer box dimensions and a three quarter strip is added top and bottom. It features individual bars laid across the top of the hive cavity.

If you do not have a roof the sun beats down on the flat lid of the hive. Whether it is a cathedral hive or a regular top bar hive proper ventilation from a roof is needed. Many beekeepers will use top bars that have a small comb guide hanging down. Experts found evidence of its use dating back to 1686 in greece.

Nails are driver through the strips and clinched for extra rigidity. As the temperature went lower other hives increased the number of daily deceased bees. Each top bar hive comes equipped with all the essential components that help make beekeeping efficient. Your top bar hive needs some type of roof to go over the flat lid of the hive.

Generally the bars are a wooden wedge or strip with a guide to ensure combs hang straight. I moved a colony of bees into this hive using an unorthodox method that i had never tried b. During the cold snap the hive that had the most insulated roof had less dead bees on the bottom screen. Of course those were not identical to the top bar hives we have today but the basic concepts are the same.

The bees build their comb down from these bars naturally without the use of a 4 sided frame or foundation. There are several different top bar hive styles. With a top bar hive the combs can become very soft and fragile if the hive is overheating. The top bar hive has emerged as a popular alternative to the langstroth for people who are looking to avoid heavy lifting and or enjoy a more natural approach to beekeeping.

Immediately i increased the top insulation of the other hives and the result was a drop in dead bees to a quarter of daily number. Discover how our high quality top bar beehives can offer an economical option for beekeeping. For the above reasons my inner covers are homemade. It is the affectionately called the attic.

Top bar hives have been around for a long time in fact some suggest the design is hundreds of years old. There are many ways to design and set up a top bar hive and until you have used one for a while it is not easy to see the advantages and disadvantages of di. Each top bar is laid across the hive with one end at the front of the box and the other at the back.