by pa_friendly_guy » Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:03 pm
I attended a talk on keeping Bees in Top Bar Hives this weekend at the Mother Earth Fair. The woman that spoke did a very good job and talked about some of the advantages of this relatively new type of hive. The main advantage she felt was not having to lift 90 lb's of weight . From a womans point of view that was huge. For some young people like Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or 4H kids that issue could be a big deal as well. Her 1st effort with the Top Bar Hives was not very good however. She bought 5 hives, 5 colonys of Bees and 5 Queen Bees. She got the bees and put them into the new hives. when she checked then a few days later to see how they were doing she found 3 hives had been vacated by the Bees. I guess they just didn't feel at home there. She said to get around this common problem there is a starter kit that you can buy for about $10 that has a smell with it that makes the bees think this place smells like Home. She asked for questions at the end, and particularly wanted to have " Old White Guys ' who have kept bees in the weir hives, [ The white boxes that you have always seen bees kept in ] There were several there. The one had kept bees since 1953 and walked with a cane he wanted to know how he could move his bees from the old hives to this new type of hive. Bottom line they do seem to work well, they are easier to get at to extract the honey, they seem to requirer a little bit more work on the Bee Keepers part, it seemed to be a matter of what you know, and what you grew up with in keeping bees. If you have the older style hives you think they work well and see no reason to change. If you started with these new type of hives you feel that any " Thinking Person " would use nothing but the Top Bar Hives. I think it is a personal decission, look at both and decide what works best for you in your situation.
Never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.