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[Roy S]

I am one who sees things from the same angle as Brosville. I think you only have to look at the current plight of the honey bee worldwide to see where the last 140 years of framed hives has taken us.

Please tell me how hive design has brought about the plight of the honey bee now?

As far as I am aware the various setbacks that honeybees have suffered have been a result of beekeepers as a whole and nothing at all to do with hive design.

The way I see things is as soon as we take bees out of the wild we are no longer keeping them naturally, so there shouldnt be any of this 'holier than thou' twaddle.

We are all beekeepers...if you like TBH great, if other hive types suit you then thats great too. But lets not do down each others preferences. The long term viability of all hives will be borne out in time.

I just dont like people ramming anything down my throat, be it politics, religion or beekeeping

At the end of the day our bees will live in just about anything, but its what makes life easier for the bees, the beekeeper and his neighbours as a complete package that tends to make the difference.

 

[VEG]

No beekeeper can claim to keep bees 100% naturally. As keeping bees in any hive is not natural.

 

[TBRNoTB]

Brosville Hi
Just completed my first TBH, I was wondering how you populated yours by swarm or cutout? If by swarm do you need to feed asap? How fast will they make combe?
Regards
roadster

 

[TBRNoTB]

47 years experience and a biologist, but totally closed to TBH and similar. Hmm. I am a scientist too.

As a biologist you will know that migrating bees all over the place is unnatural, spreads disease and stresses the insects. Also, that framed beekeeping is totally unnatural...why the brace comb? Why all that winter feed?

Expensive? That is ridiculous. A TBH costs less than a third of a basic National and none of that artificial and potentially pesticide-riddled foundation and expense for frames.

Long hives swarm more? Please quote your peer reviewed sources and I will be very interested to read them.

Next, as a biologist you know that you must set up fully comparative experiments. And be open to the results.

Plants do not care if you mess with them. Bees do and we must live with the results.

 

[Mike a]

Just completed my first TBH, I was wondering how you populated yours by swarm or cutout? If by swarm do you need to feed asap? How fast will they make combe?
Regards
roadster

Best option is a swarm but in some areas these are at a premium or rare. If you go the cut out option it is recommend you feed them 1:1 to give them half a chance to build up quickly.

As for building comb watch this.

http://www.viddler.com/explore/Garlydog/videos/1

 

[Brosville]

I've populated mine by using swarms - I wouldn't bother to feed unless they were a very weak/small swarm
They will make comb at a rate of knots - have a look at around 14-17 days, you will be gobsmacked!

As for "what's wrong" - the honest answer is that I really don't know, but I think we can make some educated guesses based on looking at food production and the environment as a whole..... Do I think hive design has anything to do with it? - I suspect that "husbandry" has a lot to do with things, and probably the underlying ethos of management is more important than just "hive design" (you can run most hives without foundation and using different techniques)

 

[Roy S]

As for "what's wrong" - the honest answer is that I really don't know, but I think we can make some educated guesses based on looking at food production and the environment as a whole..... Do I think hive design has anything to do with it? - I suspect that "husbandry" has a lot to do with things, and probably the underlying ethos of management is more important than just "hive design" (you can run most hives without foundation and using different techniques)

That was sooooo refreshing to read, I think you've got it spot on, you can be a bad beekeeper no matter what type of hive you are using.
I've used home made foundation many times in my nationals, and I plan to start doing so again this year. I also try to leave my bees with as much stores as they will need to see them through the winter, but others may think I'm being a bit OTT

As for migratory beekeeping being bad...yes I think it is, but that has nothing to do with the type of hive you use has it? Package bees get sent round the world with not a frame in sight, but a hell of a potential for spreading disease.

I must admit I'd like to find out more about TBH's not because I want to start using them, nationals fit into my method of beekeeping very nicely. But more so I can keep up with any developments in beekeeping.

A quote I quite like at the moment is " A human mind is like a parachute, it only works properly when open"
I think too many people wander round with closed minds

 

[the naked beekeeper]

Please tell me how hive design has brought about the plight of the honey bee now?

As far as I am aware the various setbacks that honeybees have suffered have been a result of beekeepers as a whole and nothing at all to do with hive design.

The way I see things is as soon as we take bees out of the wild we are no longer keeping them naturally, so there shouldnt be any of this 'holier than thou' twaddle.

We are all beekeepers...if you like TBH great, if other hive types suit you then thats great too. But lets not do down each others preferences. The long term viability of all hives will be borne out in time.

I just dont like people ramming anything down my throat, be it politics, religion or beekeeping

At the end of the day our bees will live in just about anything, but its what makes life easier for the bees, the beekeeper and his neighbours as a complete package that tends to make the difference.

No type of bee'keeping' is natural.
The very term 'keep' implies that and I don't think any TBH users or Phil himself would advocate that they are keeping bees 100% naturally.

However, they are keeping bees in a more harmonious way to their natural instincts.

The model is based to fit on how the bees would live in the wild. The ethos 'the bees know best' is very much at the fore of their practice and therefore it should serve that since every species wants to survive and propagate, then the bees will do everything they can to maximise this.

How do TBHs encourage this??
Well, for a start, the foundation is 100% pure beeswax. Not some recycled wax from thousands of hives nationally, contaning God knows whatever they put into their bee hives.

The bees are in complete autonomy of their cell size, so they can rear whatever size honey bee they like and rear as many drones as they like.
Not to have their size forced upon them or assigned to raising fewer drones because the wax needs to be altered. Cell size ranges typically from 3.8-5.6 mm or so, depending upon strain of bee and the state of the season. Again, the bees know best.

The frames are flush together meaning that upon inspection, the whole interior temperature and antimicrobial homeostasis is not allowed to rush out.....serving to distress the bees. They carry on like nothing is happening. If you have ever seen a TBH being inspected, there are a LOT less flying irritated bees than in a spaced hive.

I don't think anyone is ramming anything down anyones throat here.

I do believe however, it is important to keep the channels of discourse open between 'camps' and that the more people that use or have some experience of both systems of beekeeping, the richer and more valid the discussions can be, at the expense of a lot of the current finger pointing.

 

[oliver90owner]

I am not against TBHs by any means.

I do note the sometimes acrid tones directed at 'normal' beekeepers (at times), with continual spouting about this and that. I know that a 'normal' hive is not perfect, but lets remember that TBHs also do not conform to all of the TBHers 'ideal' claims.

One simple question: How is the inter-comb distance set in a TBH? Some things are ignored when it suits, I think...

I think the Warre is a good idea, but simply fails because of the unknown disease status of the system - note 'system' . That includes all the things around the hive that unfortunately have changed greatly in the last 80 years or so.

Regards, RAB

 

[Incatatus]

i would love to see one of these things in action, is anyone near s. wales?

 

[Brosville]

"I do note the sometimes acrid tones directed at 'normal' beekeepers" - all I can assume is that it is a direct reaction to the undue venom that one experiences from certain of the "conventional brigade" when one even dares mention topbar hives or "natural" beekeeping, or questions the entirely grubby relationship between the British Beekillers' Association, Bayer and Syngenta....
When I first started on the path to beekeeping with my local association (with no preconceived ideas whatsoever) I found most people friendly and helpful, but as soon as I visited the national forum between meetings, the scales fell rapidly from my eyes, and I soon discovered the totally undeserved hostility towards "top bars" - and rapidly learnt that those who had usurped power locally were party-line toeing fundamentalists of the very worst sort who had the barefaced cheek to vote the way they chose, and do not deem consultation with the rank and file membership over such things as pesticide sponsorship either desirable or necessary, and did their utmost to discredit "alternative" methods of beekeeping.......
I shall forever be in their debt, being typically Sussex in my attitude ("We wunt be druv") for encouraging me to question the whole ethos of "conventional beekeeping", Mugabe-style "democracy" and a corrupt-to-the -core National Association...........

I wholeheartedly agree that if there are "sides" caused by the above, then there is no reason whatsoever why we shouldn't rise above petty emnity, and at least discuss that which we have in common, and the differences in approach - even if the forces of darkness loathe the idea that us "anti-chemical" brigade are in any way human, reasonable, or may indeed "have a point"

 

[FenBee]

I too find the concepts of the TBH interesting and I'm in the process of building one at the moment. One point that I am concerned about is even with pre-waxed top bars to entice the bees to build comb centrally on each top bar, there are reports of comb being built across several top bars. I shall still pre-wax the top bars of course.

My answer to this is to make a simple frame, consisting of one top bar, with two holes drilled at an angle that will allow dowel to be used as side bars and then a smaller bottom bar to complete the frame, bee space being observed. Hopefully, the bees will make their comb within this space and the resulting comb will be stronger.

The other change will be a OM floor that is hinged, so in the winter I can drop it down to clear dead bees and maintain better hive hygiene.

 

[Finman]

47 years experience and a biologist, but totally closed to TBH and similar. Hmm. I am a scientist too..

even if i am biologist and a beekeeper, I do not need stop using my own brains.

.

As a biologist you will know that migrating bees all over the place is unnatural, spreads disease and stresses the insects..

As a bilogist I can use my knowledge and experience and I need not permission to think and do what I like. I have nerve to think myselöf and not to run according collective acceptance= society shark.

As a beekeepers (how many hives) you should know that if you have over 5 hives, it is better to put them in different places that there are a good yield in flowers what to gather.



.

Also, that framed beekeeping is totally unnatural...why the brace comb?.

Why don't you live in gave or on the tree. Why you live in square house?


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Why all that winter feed? .

the winter food is changed to cheaper sugar. Winter food is needed that they survive over winter.

20 kg honey is much money and perhaps it is the part which make beekeeping profitable when you take off the cost.

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Expensive? That is ridiculous. .

It is if you are not able to calculate incomes and costs.

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pesticide-riddled foundation and expense for frames..

You need a vivid imagination when you say pesticide-riddled. You do not know what you are talking.

Foundations came mostly made from capping wax. The cost is 3 €/kg when I recycke my wax and use it again. One kg wax needs 6-8 kg honey, and if you do not use foundation, to draw the whole langstroth box need 2 kg wax and 15 kg honey.

Where you out your wax? Burn to heaven's winds as candles. Don't you have cheaper energy?

Long hives swarm more? Please quote your peer reviewed sources and I will be very interested to read them.

I need not. When you play nature, swarming is a natural way to propagate. Without selection hives make 2 swarm a year.

It woud be easy to use low hives that you need not to lift so much heavy boxes. But Bees cannot handle the vertical space.

But never mind, TB hives swarms however as much they can.

To conventional beekeeping swarming is the enemy one.

Next, as a biologist you know that you must set up fully comparative experiments. And be open to the results.

I have got a education of researcher but to understand things you need basic knowledge. Second, when the man need knowledge, he even teal them but if he don't, it is same even if angels tell it to you.


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Plants do not care if you mess with them. Bees do and we must live with the results.

What do you know about plants or bees? Have I messed something?

PS: I have seen natural combs. Can you wonder them next 50 years, again and again and keep you skills in minimum level? I prefer to stir at silicon tits from google.

.

 

[Brosville]

"the winter food is changed to cheaper sugar. Winter food is needed that they survive over winter" - the operative word here is "survive" - not "live healthily and naturally" as they would do using their own natural honey stores (bee problems probably have a lot to do with compromised immune systems, feed them empty calories instead, you certainly aren't doing your best to help them maintain a healthy system)

"You need a vivid imagination when you say pesticide-riddled. You do not know what you are talking" - it is virtually impossible to buy foundation which is not full of chemical residues - that's an inescapable fact!

You really can't seem to enable your "47 years of experience" brain round the concept that you keep bees for one reason only, to exploit their products for money, and that there are other people who aren't "in it for the money", but instead are seeking gentler ways of husbandry geared more towards the bees' welfare - I am totally at a loss as to why you should be so negative..........

 

[Finman]

"the winter food is changed to cheaper sugar. Winter food is needed .......

I do not debate with 3-hive owner. I just tell that you have no idea what is my backround.


You know nothing what is to live with natural way. I was born quite out of all civilization after war. We had nothing when we moved to the small city.

I started beekeeping at the age of 15. Broswille, you are not able to ever learn about beekeeping or nature, what I have learned during my life.

You take a wooden stick and HEY! this natural!

I made all my first 20 hives all my self and all 2000 frames in it.
I make my first extractor too, smoker and what ever . I movd my hives with bicylcle to distance of 15 km and I got 100 kg per hive honey. Then I used moped. I think that you have nothing to teach me. I byed my first city flat with honey money, and it was not a twig cabin.

I live near the centre of capital city and it is a fake to live naturally there.
As a child we lived very naturally but I have nothing good to remember from that time.

Before beekeeping I colected 80 different bird egg collection. I was 11-14 years old when i did it. I learned the voice of birds, nest, eggs an many more things.
.

 

[Finman]

" but instead are seeking gentler ways of husbandry geared more towards the bees' welfare - I am totally at a loss as to why you should be so negative..........

My bees are surely better nursed than you mongrels in that board box.

In my country we are so near to nature that we need not to pretend to be "backyard nature lovers"

 

[Brosville]

Toys out of the pram job!

 

[tonybloke]

please continue with this, I ain't got a television, and this thread is better entertainment than most of what's on the radio!!


(My mates TBH is doing well, going to install more top bars today)

 

[Brosville]

What I find totally ironic is that blinker-wearers can go hurtling past things that may benefit them..........
I've recently been reading about the work of a blatantly commercial beekeeper who gets colossal yields in temperate parts of South America, by using such things as vast foundationless hives, and the strict avoidance of all "chemicals" - (Oscar Perone), and am tempted to give one a go myself.......

 

[Finman]

.
I go to look silicon tits. Take a good care of bees!

I am convinced now that top bar people are good people. Good ego.