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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
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Tue, 11 Jul 2017 11:32:26 -0400
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Bill,


Being a cheapskate, I make my top bar hives from recycled pallet planks so the materials cost virtually nothing.  My design uses top bars of the length used in standard hives, 17" in the UK, so that bars can be shifted into nucleus boxes for queen rearing etc.  The top bars form the diameter of a half cylinder with the hive entrance at the sunny end.  Having applied Pi, I discovered that the area of comb per bar is almost identical to that of a standard brood frame.


The bees usually (bees do nothing invariably!) rear their brood at the front of the hive and store their honey towards the rear.  This makes harvesting easier.  If I want a crop of propolis (popular in that part of Europe and people are asking me for it here) I remove one bar and space the remainder.  On my next visit I can scrape the edges of the bars to retrieve the propolis.


Because the hive isn't disrupted when being examined, as stacking box hives are, the bees hardly know you're there and smoke etc is unnecessary.  I don't feed my bees and so tend to take the crop from my TBHs in the spring in the knowledge that it is genuine honey (not partially recycled sugar) and is surplus to their requirements.  Conveniently that is usually about the time when I have sold the last of the honey from my conventional National hives.


Chris

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