Top Bar hives are the new craze in natural bee keeping circles. You can make your own (using instructions from Good magazine, issue 14) or you can buy one!
Top bar hives require a minimum of tools and equipment and don’t involve any heavy lifting—but the biggest bonus is how they foster a relatively natural, hands-off approach to beekeeping.
Top-bar hives have been around for thousands of years. Still relatively unknown in New Zealand, top-bar hives are fast gaining popularity with the new generation of beekeepers due to their simple, low-cost construction.
Top-bar hives aim to mirror what occurs in nature, providing bees with a hospitable, stable and pest-free place to live. Instead of forcing your bees to work with plastic or wax that could contain any amount of chemical residues, the bees start from scratch each time, building honey comb along each of the top-bars.
You’ll get less honey with a top-bar hive compared to a conventional hive, but the approach promotes a strong, healthy colony that should be much better equipped to cope with pests, disease and all the other afflictions besetting the modern honeybee. Loads of fabulous smelling beeswax is an added bonus.
Great! How do I get one?
- Check out Good Issue 14 for step by step instructions for how to make your own hive.
- Or buy one readymade or in kitset form from:
Bert Koppenaal at Bertina Builders
ph 09 483 9892 or 027 471 9760
[email protected]or from Green Urban Living
