I'm also curious about that. My oldest son had the idea of building TBHs to sell to local gardeners who wanted to keep bees. But it seems like when people want bees they just order a regular hive and go from there.

The top bar hives seem to be the province of us hacker types who like doing things ourselves.

That has been my thoughts as well. I just love working with wood and would almost build them for no more than the cost of the materials. (Not a wise idea I suppose)
The TBH's are much simpler to deal with. The bees remain much calmer during hive service/manipulation. To my mind there is the added benefit of letting the ladies set up house the way THEY want it...I'm sure all the rest of us men can appreciate the importance of that. The beekeeper has only to move a single piece of wood to expand the capacity of a hive allowing for more comb bars. There is also built in storage in each hive box for your gear, i.e., smoker, frame tool, gloves veil, etc.
The only drawback I have seen is that the cover can get a bit heavy/bulky depending upon how fancy an individual apiarist decides to be with the look of his boxes. I have a few ides on that topic I want to tinker with...You never know!

Here's mine:



The lid is surprisingly heavy. I have a chain attached to the lid so it won't swing all the way open; it stops at a maybe 100 degree angle.

The hip roof lids are heavy. Nice solution to the next problem by using the rebar anchor

Yes, that rebar anchor works great. I have one on both ends of the hive. I also was afraid of strong winds tipping over the hive - can you imagine that happening? Ouch.

I would love to try a TBH but I'm not the beekeeper around here unfortunately.
I'm just the gardener who spplies the ladies with flowers.

I bought this book https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603584617/
earlier in the year and it has been a really good read. Gonna build a few of these and put them in the middle of the main gardens. Thanks everyone for all the pictures, some great looking hives!

Good luck with your upcoming hives, Joseph. Do post pictures as you go!

missed this yesterday on my way in a few to take a class on bee keeping with topbar hives .. will stop back thater today to finish reading

ranedie said:Our old (and barely used) TBH on the right & new one on the left. The new one is based on a hot weather design by Jacob Klingensmith from the Ploughshare school at Homestead Heritage near Waco Tx. He's the head beekeeper & instructor for their school & cares for over 80 of the community hives they have.

When we first met Jacob, much of our research & the hive that we built had been based on "The Barefoot Beekeeper" & the information at biobees, most of which originates from a much cooler UK climate. As we discussed all that, we learned that over the years, he'd looked at & used all of the various designs out there, & finally tweaked his own design which is essentially shorter, wider, & longer than most TBH's with end only entrances. The shorter wider design tends to minimize or eliminate failure at the comb to bar attachment in extended hot weather. Placing the entrances on the ends allow for a handy & very convenient place to hang the feeder, or refill it w/o disturbing the bees.

Because our bait hive swarm arrived right after meeting him, & before we'd been able to build a new one based on his plans, we settled for a pre-cut kit he had available & assembled & painted it ourselves. The old one actually did house the new swarm for a short while before we got the new one ready, but they're doing very well 4 months later. The old one has turned into yard furniture while we figure out what to do with it...

took Jacob class yesterday .. he is really a nice person loved the class

I have a few questions for you all, What are the bee entrances like on all of your TBH’s. Mine has three large holes drilled on the long side, that I can close down. I didn’t get a good picture of the hole openings. Only of the window that I think is so awesome. In hind sight I should have gotten some photos of the beautiful comb they made so quickly. Anyway, someone mentioned they drilled a small entrance on one of the narrow ends. Also, do you move the bars around much? Do you give them full use of the length of the hive right from the start?
Here is a photo of mine. I placed a captured swarm in it, but something happened to the queen before they could get brood going so I lost the colony. Now, my husband has fastened it to a much sturdier base and I am hoping to move another swarm into it. I was very fortunate to have a swarm voluntarily move into my Langstroth hive, and maybe I can do a split next season with those and put some in my Top Bar....


Thanks,
Toni

I went out this morning and checked my top bar hive. It's pretty nearly full of complete combs like the one photoed below. I did steal one bar of honey from them since it looks like they can afford it.

Success!

It's actually a pretty nice feeling of accomplishment.

It's easy to buy a Langstroth hive with all the foundations and everything and go to work. It's another thing altogether to build a top bar hive 100% from scratch, capture a wild swarm, get them working your hive and finally finishing with a harvest. It feels great in a "back to the earth" kind of way.

Congratulations Dave. What does the honey taste like?

We pulled some that has a mint flavor to it.

Great question on the flavor. Actually, it has an earthier taste to it, which surprised me. The honey from our langstroth hive is definitely more tame and mild in flavor. But maybe that's because I harvested this one in late November and the last one was harvested in the spring?

I wish I could describe the flavor. It really seems to carry the same flavor as the fragrance of the combs and hive itself. One person who tasted it said it tastes like the inside of a hive smells. I think it's a wonderful flavor.

It was also REALLY easy to process. I just cut the comb right off the bar and into a sieve. Smashed it up with a spoon and it all nicely dripped into the bowl below. I'll put the bits of wax outside and let the bees clean it off. I believe each bar, if full of capped cells, would produce maybe 3 pints of honey. I could see a strong hive giving 12 bars of honey in a year so that'd be 36 pints or 4.5 gallons.

Yes Dave honey pulled at different times will have different flavors. The reason is because they are visiting different flowers.
We have pulled two weeks apart in late spring from the same hive when nectar flow was really good and got two different flavors. Just a frame or two not the whole harvest
Also, we have pulled both light and dark honey from the same hive. They have totally different flavors. The mint tasting one was a light honey in a hive with a dark honey which tastes smooth and buttery.
Processing the colors separate gives you what is called artisan honey which commands a higher price than a honey produced from combing all of it together.

For those of you with top bar hives here is an article on how to keep brood out of the honey.
http://thebeespace.net/2009/02...

bees have been in one hive for about 3 mons now ... the second hive the bees left the first day we got them home we took the hives to the beekeeper & he installed the bees im thinking there was no Queen in the one hive next spring ill install my self

Impressive build!