My Homemade Top Bar Hive
01/26/07 Well today I started building my 1st hive, another learning experience. I went to a big chain home improvement store ( because the local hardware store didn't have the size lumber I needed, I always try to buy from the localy owned stores ) and bought three 1"x12"x6' "Whitewood" Pine boards ($28.05), a 1 lb. box of 2" exterior wood screws ($6.97) and some plastic window screen for the bottom ($5.49). I used the instructions on the Very Usefull Links page, but changed it a little to make it look the way I wanted and excluded the legs because I'm thinking of hanging it instead but might just put it on some cinder blocks. All I have left to do is seal it and cut a few more topbars ( it started raining on me today). Also I plan to rub the inside with citronella leaves as this is supposed to attract honey bees. I also have to get some bee's wax to treat the groove in the top bars so they will build where I want them to.
01/27/08 Well, today I met Mr. James Metcalf "Mick" of Bay Springs Honey. He is a very pleasant man that lives about ½ mile down the road from us. He sold me a little bee's wax for my top bars. He's been beekeeping in his Langstroth Hives for 10 years. When asked about local issues with beekeeping he said, for the first few years he had a small problem with Varoa Mites but eventualy got this little pest under controll. In the last couple of years a new commer to America the Hive Beetle has brought his once 20 hive strong apiary down to 3 hives! I have to study everything I can find in this pest and find a way to help him rid his apiary of this terrible intruder.
It seems at some stage in the life cycle of these beetles they need to get into the ground. That is where most of the sites say to treat for them. I dont know if they crawl down into the soil or if they just kind of fall there. Wonder what if I made it so that they would have to crawl down into watter, like set my stand in tubs of water. I realy dont want to apply any chemicals cause I know they all have an adverse effect on the micro environment that we sometimes don't even notice. Also it seems that they seek cracks and crevases to lay their eggs, so I,m going to caulk the inside and out of my hive with a latex caulk. A recomendation from the sites I visited says to remove stored honey asap and that they reoccure each year due to the previous infestation. Maybe the Topbar will be better than Langstroth design in controlling these pests due to the harvesting of the honey comb each year and the bees having to building new ones . These pests are originaly from Africa where they're only a secondary pest. Perhaps this is because a large majority of beekeepers there use Topbars??? Dont know this for a fact, but they seem to wreak havoc here. With there being an obvious infestation in my imediate area this will be a good way to find out.
03/02/08 Well spring is on the way! I saw some Bumble bees visiting some little wild flowers today but no honey bees yet. My hive is almost complete. I just caulked the roof and am letting it dry. I should be able to place it this afternoon. I'm going to place it near some blackberry vines just in the edge of the woods for shade. I hope when the bees find the flowering vines they will consider my hive a suitable place to send a swarm. I will make a feeder and place it near the hive with sugar water in it. Those pics are comming I promise. I've been real busy lately with all the projects I have going. I am also trying the " Catfish in a Barrel" experiment. But thats gonna be a new page.
03/09/08 Ok here are some pics of my 1st hive, it's a topbar hive.
As you can see I have plugged two of the three entrance holes so that the bees will have less to defend and also I will only be using 11 of the 27 bars till the colony is well established.
Here you can see the divider board of which I have 2. Right next to the divider on the bottom you can see the hole that I have left open for the bees to use. The bottom is made of plastic mesh to help keep the hive cool in the summer. When winter comes again I will add a bottom board for insulation.
I put a clasp like the one shown on each end to hold the roof tightly on. Now all I need is to find some bees. Mrs. Roslyn Horton was kind enough to offer to let me know where a swarm is when she gets a call. I might try to build a capture box and take her up on that, but first I want to try to attract a swarm with some lure. I figure most people won't know anyone that can help them with their first swarm so I'll give it a shot.
04/02/08 I GOT BEES! Yesterday my good friend Mrs. Ros Horton called me to her house and gave me a swarm from her hives. Here is a pic of the swarm before we caught them.
THANKS ROS!!! We used a bee vac that I made from a 5 gallon bucket and some sheet metal. The vac worked but there were a few flaws I will work out in the next model. It probably would have been more efficient to just scrape them into the bucket but I wanted to try this thing out. So we caught the bees. I brought them home to my hive only to find that some local teenagers vandalized my hive! You can imagine how angry I was. They took all but 4 of my bars and one of my dividers. I had to rebuild these things before I could hive them. So I did.
04/03/08 Ros called to let me know I should feed them some sugar water for a few days till they are established. I mixed a 1 to 1 ratio of sugar to water. I punched about 5 holes in the metal top of a salsa jar. I filled the jar with the sugar water and inverted it on to the top of a butter tub. I placed 4 nickels between the jar lid and the butter tub lid so a little of the mixture could seep out. Today I saw a couple of them using it. I stood and watched the hive for a few minutes and man they are busy flying in and out. I could see that the outgoing bees were heading in 2 distinctly different directions. I'm glad they found something they like out there, lol.
04/07/08 Well, more problems on the homestead.... I guess the bees didn't like the home I built for them. They stayed for a couple of days, then I came out 2 days ago and they we all swarmed up on the outside of the hive. I asked and everyone said they were about to leave. I rehived them and the majority stayed inside for the next 24 hours. I had already added a feeder I made from a salsa jar and a butter tub lid with 1 to 1 sugar water in it. I placed a block of wax on top of the feeder, so maybe they would use it to build. I also poured some honey on the top of a couple of topbars. They ate the honey build a little comb on top of the block ( I guess a monument to remember the by LOL) and were mostly gone when I got home today. There is still a small golf ball sized chunk of them on one of the bars. I really hate that I lost Mrs. Ros' swarm. Thats the worst part... I stained the outside and sealed it with Min-Wax, I caulked the joints inside and out with silicone. These chemicals might have made them leave. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES PLEASE< ALL NATURAL! I don't know but I pretty down about it. Guess I'll leave the hive alone for a few days and see if the remaining bees will maybe build me a little comb for the next hive. I plan to build a new one in a few days minus the chemical preservatives. Let it be said that I learned that bees make their own caulk so silicone is not even needed. It also has a vinegary smell when wet, they probably smell it even dry... I don't know....
05/12/08 Those remaining bees I spoke of above never built any comb and died in the hive. Mrs Ros E-mailed me a few days ago telling me a friend had a Bees in the Wall problem. She said I was the only person near there that had a bee vacuum ( which I made my self from a 5 gal bucket and a shop vac) and construction experience. I Packed a few power tools, a hammer, my be vacuum and my veil and smoker. I got there found the entrances ( there were 3) , smoked the holes and waited a few minutes while i set up. Then I went to work with the Sawzall . The old cedar lap siding came off pretty easy to expose the biggest hive I've ever seen ( even on the internet). The studs were on 2 foot centers ( about 23 inches between) and was an 8 foot high wall. For two spaces ( almost 4 feet) wide was comb and it stretched almost all the way down. You wouldn't believe how many bees there were! I got almost a full bucket of bees and had to leave before the sun went down. I also took about 11 stings on my wrists and 2 to the back of the head after I removed my veil. I think there is more to the comb in the next section. I have to go back tomorrow or Wed. to get the rest of the bees and comb out. I hived the bucket of bees. I don't know if I got the queen. I hope so. There was so much brood comb and so many bees, to look for her was futile. I'll let them build some comb and see if I can find her in the hive. I have allot of bees! I will probably get a piece of brood comb when I go back and try to melt it to one of the topbars . If she's in there I would think she would start laying on that and give me a chance to find her. My wrists look like ankles, so I'll modify my homemade equipment to better cover my hands and wrists before I go back. That many stings in one spot ain't pleasant. If I killed her or lost her I'll get a queen from somewhere else. I hope there is no more comb in those next spaces of wall. I told Mrs. Grimes I would get rid of her bees, so I'm committed. Also the whole time I was working the audience kept growing. Not much happens in Wicksberg I guess LOL. Looked like the entire Fire and Rescue Team was back there watching with hopes of some free honey. But my hands were full with the task and didn't have time to separate comb. I had one of the fire and rescue guys hold my camera for a second then he was chased away by the huge black cloud of winged white hot rivets. So no video. I'll get some of the place where the comb was when I go back. WISH ME LUCK!
05/15/08 Well I went back and extracted another bucket of the bees and hived them. I also removed all of the comb from the wall. This Time I got video! So rather than explain it I'll let you watch it. I will say that was 2 days ago and the bees I have are building comb which is a good sign that they will stay. I still don't know if i have the queen but i should in a few days. so check out my videos on you tube . Clark's Homestead's Videos
05/21/08 WOOO HOOO! I have the queen! I built a feeder designed for a topbar hive. You can check out the design on this page Topbar Feeder . I went out to fill it again yesterday with a 2/1 sugar water solution. I didn't bring the smoker cause I realy don't have to open the hive to fill it. I filled it and then just couldn't leave without taking a little peak. I took one of the bars up and there was a comb about 10 inches wide and 8 or 9 inches long. So i lifted the next one, same thing! They have drawn comb on about 5 bars already! They weren't happy that I didn't give 'em a smoke before breaking in though. I lifted the bar closest to the entrance and farthest from the feeder and there she was! There were some of the cells on that comb about half filled with what looked like.... well like dried peanut butter. i hope these are eggs. Some of the cells on the other combs had honey but not sealed. I'll let them do their thing for a few days and then I'll go back to inspect and get some video. Those stark white combs are a thing of beauty. This Saturday I'm going to Georgia to remove a hive from a wall in a house that was built in 1880 something. I'm taking the bees to Mrs. Ros and I'll probably keep most of the honey or sell some to pay for the gas to get there. I'll video that extraction too.
06/29/08 Well I never made it to Georgia for that extraction. I lost the gentleman's email address and haven't heard from him again. The bees are doing well. They have drawn comb on most of the bars now and there is a decent amount of honey. I removed the feeder. I think they can handle it on their own now. I'll get some video next time I inspect the hive.
03/10/09 Today I opened my hive for the first time since the Fall. There is beautiful brood comb on all but the last 5 bars. 2 of the last 5 had comb drawn across them connecting the two. There was no capped honey in the hive at all, so tomorrow ill start feeding them. The population is great they all look healthy. Lots of brood hatching. 2 of the last 3 bars were small new comb and looked like nectar.The white clover are blooming and I've noticed the girls visiting them. The screen on the bottom of the hive is torn, so I'll have to fix that. With all that brood comb it really only leaves room for 3 bars of honey... I hope that is enough space, if they fill up ill probably remove one of the brood combs and replace with a fresh bar to build on. I really need to build another hive, there are allot of bees in there and I'm pretty sure there will be a swarm. I didn't think to look for a queen cell when i was in there . I'll look next time though.