Top Bar

Racer92
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Racer92
Edited Date/Time 4/2/2014 6:38am








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Pond Scum
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Pond Scum 3/30/2014 8:24am
3/30/2014 8:24am
Pretty neat, I've always wanted some bees in the orchard
jonjon714
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jonjon714 3/30/2014 11:18am
3/30/2014 11:18am
How long does it take for a hive to establish?
Racer92
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Racer92 3/30/2014 6:32pm
3/30/2014 6:32pm
jonjon714 wrote:
How long does it take for a hive to establish?
Depends on what you mean by establish, around here the colony starts making brood comb around late January, so workers have been busy for several months and the Queen making more brood get the numbers up. The flow wont come until later when they start making honey comb. After the spring flow is over they will shut down production for the summer and just keep the status quo and ride out the heat until fall.
MR. X
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MR. X 3/30/2014 6:36pm
3/30/2014 6:36pm
I started my new job this week and was talking to another guy who was going through orientation with me , he said he had bees in florida and could get 1500 bucks to bring his bees to someones orchard . Sounds like a good deal.

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jonjon714
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jonjon714 3/31/2014 5:24am
3/31/2014 5:24am
jonjon714 wrote:
How long does it take for a hive to establish?
Racer92 wrote:
Depends on what you mean by establish, around here the colony starts making brood comb around late January, so workers have been busy for several months...
Depends on what you mean by establish, around here the colony starts making brood comb around late January, so workers have been busy for several months and the Queen making more brood get the numbers up. The flow wont come until later when they start making honey comb. After the spring flow is over they will shut down production for the summer and just keep the status quo and ride out the heat until fall.
Excellent info, thanks a ton. There's a kid in our neighborhood who has put hives in people's backyards and he uses the top bar. I think he started as a boy scout thing and got majorly hooked on it.

Our family has discussed getting into bees just recently and now we're at that point where the wife and I will not bring it up and see if it was a fleeting issue or if the kids are for reals.
Racer92
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Racer92 3/31/2014 6:00am
3/31/2014 6:00am
jonjon714 wrote:
Excellent info, thanks a ton. There's a kid in our neighborhood who has put hives in people's backyards and he uses the top bar. I think...
Excellent info, thanks a ton. There's a kid in our neighborhood who has put hives in people's backyards and he uses the top bar. I think he started as a boy scout thing and got majorly hooked on it.

Our family has discussed getting into bees just recently and now we're at that point where the wife and I will not bring it up and see if it was a fleeting issue or if the kids are for reals.
IMHO the top bar setup is better than the more common Langstroth. With this one there is no bending, lifting and restacking boxes, no pre-made combs, none of that. Everything is right there easy to work on. You basically let the bees do what they've done for hundreds of thousands of years, difference is you can take the lid off and move the 'bars' around to make their work easier to harvest. (as well as make fresh new bars available for brood comb construction to keep them from swarming and leaving prematurely) Plus if you do it right and not screw around with the end furthest from the entrance, the workers will keep the hive beetles cornered over on that end. Kinda like a beetle prison.
Shiftfaced
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Shiftfaced 3/31/2014 7:43am
3/31/2014 7:43am
I considered the Top Bar, but decided to go with the more common Langstroth hiving system.

This will be my first year. I ordered up two nucs, and have the boxes all set up. We should be getting them within the next week or two. I am not counting on any honey this year, but would welcome it if it happened.
Dirty Britches 3/31/2014 8:02am
3/31/2014 8:02am
do you use bee calls to get them to build a nest? or buy the bees on Amazon?
curious, that sounds like a pretty cool hobby.
Racer92
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Racer92 3/31/2014 8:04am
3/31/2014 8:04am
Shiftfaced wrote:
I considered the Top Bar, but decided to go with the more common Langstroth hiving system. This will be my first year. I ordered up two...
I considered the Top Bar, but decided to go with the more common Langstroth hiving system.

This will be my first year. I ordered up two nucs, and have the boxes all set up. We should be getting them within the next week or two. I am not counting on any honey this year, but would welcome it if it happened.
Awesome! Just keeping a hive going, not have them swarm and haul ass is a feat in itself really. Then you got beetles, mites, ants, on and on. Good luck getting the nuc installed. Putting a package in a top-bar is different. I may get my wife to video when we put a new package in this hive.
Racer92
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Racer92 3/31/2014 8:06am
3/31/2014 8:06am
Dirty Britches wrote:
do you use bee calls to get them to build a nest? or buy the bees on Amazon?
curious, that sounds like a pretty cool hobby.
Bee keeping is cool as hell, good for the environment, challenging to learn how it all works, and on good years you can get buttloads of honey, propolis and useful beeswax!
jonjon714
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jonjon714 3/31/2014 8:19am
3/31/2014 8:19am
It certainly sounds cool, really cool! And it sure would be a good educational experience for kids. PLEASE keep us updated on the progress of that hive if it's not too much trouble. A video of you guys installing the bee package would be so freaking neat!

Thanks again for taking time and providing all the info!
Racer92
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Racer92 3/31/2014 8:33am
3/31/2014 8:33am
Dirty Britches wrote:
do you use bee calls to get them to build a nest? or buy the bees on Amazon?
curious, that sounds like a pretty cool hobby.
Here in Texas we round 'em up with horses and rope em'. Takes forever! Wink

Actually most folks just buy their packages online from large Apiaries.

Example: http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/beginning_beekeeping_package_bees.html

Its better if you can find a local feral swarm somewhere that is living au naturale. Many commerical Apiaries use lots of chemicals and anti-biotics to keep their hives going and I dont beleive in any of that shit. (to kill hive beetles, varroa mites, etc) Bees have been around for hundreds of thousands of years and do just fine without man-made crap. The key is let Nature do its job and the genetically weak/inferior bees just need to die and that way only more disease and mite resistant bees remain to propagate. Feral swarms usually have good genetics and made it on their own.

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