When we first started keeping bees, we had just sunk all of our money into purchasing a property, so just to purchase a package of bees ($100) was a big financial commitment for us. We didn’t have enough money to also purchase the necessary supplies (bee suits, hive tool, bee brush, smoker, etc.) and a basic hive ($100+) so I put my woodworking skills to the test and used some scraps of wood to build a top bar hive. The project took me a weekend of cutting, drilling, screwing, gluing, constructing, and staining. I finished the final touches at about 10pm the night before we acquired our package of bees, which we successfully dumped into our new hive, along with the queen, and began our beekeeping adventures. I’ve built a total of 3 top bar hives, using the same dimensions and all 3 of them are still in operation, 2 at our house and 1 off-site. One of the many aspects that I like about the top bar hives is that I have built a window into the side of the hive so that I can check in on the bees without disturbing them. The window has proven to be a big success in monitoring my bees and also entertaining children.

The biggest challenge of a top bar hive is that you really have to be on top of it when the bees are building their comb. Once they start to curve or connect the lines of comb, it’s trouble. I learned this the hard way because I wasn’t diligent about keeping the comb straight and contained to each individual bar. Our first year of beekeeping was a big nectar flow year and after 2-3 months of building and reproducing, the hive was packed full. I opened it up ready to harvest honey, which there was an abundance of, and as pulled up the first bar (laden with honey), the bar broke off the comb. i then tried to pull up the next bar, which was double loaded with 2 honey combs, and it broke and dropped into the hive, spilling honey all over thousands of bees and cause general pandemonium. Bees were drowning in honey and the entire hive was a picasso-esque mess with free-formed comb stuck together and to the walls of the hive. I had to take most of it out, save what comb I could, and put it back together. I spent hours rinsing off bees covered in honey so that they could fly back to their hive. I learned an important lesson – when you have a top bar, do everything you can to make sure the bees are sticking to the bars that you set up for them. Once they have a pattern, they tend to follow it and everything is okay. On the top bar hives I built after that I was able to control construction and didn’t have any issues.

After 3 years of top bar only beekeeping, my wife and I bought our first langstroth hive (the langstroth hives are the type of hives most commercial beekeepers use and what most people are familiar with – stacked boxes). The langstroth hives tend to be more flexible as you can just stack on another box once the population has outgrown the existing hive. My wife and I now maintain both type of hives and have done so for the last 5+ years. My general thoughts are, that if you are beekeeping to harvest honey, or if swarm control is a big concern for you, then langstroth hives are probably a better solution. If you are beekeeping because you like having bees around, or like watching them, then a top bar hive with a window(s) is the way to go.

When we were maintaining 12+ hives, the langstroth hives made that possible, but now that we are trying to limit our hives to 4-6 throughout the year, I get more satisfaction with my top bar hives.