Top bar

[MrB]

This thread and the characters involved remind me why I have left the biobees forum. Evangelising and spouting dogma are not for me. No one person is right here. There are more than one way to keep bees and it is up to the individual to decide for themself how they should do so. The shape of the box has nothing to do with natural beekeeping. If Finman wants to keep bees by dosing them with Oxalic, taking the maximum amount of honey and feeding back sugar, it is up to him. He has made that successful for him and achieved his goals by it. If someone else wants to keep bees in a skep without treatments and take none of their honey, that is their perogative too. Neither is right or wrong to do so. Neither do they have the right to tell someone else that their's is the right and only way.

Well said!

 

[susbees]

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.

Well, yes, that may appear so but those interested in top bar beekeeping encounter problems every time they mention their interest in "normal beekeeping" circles. So most keep quiet. Or stop going altogether which is a shame because there is so much to learn.

Whilst I chose a bad comparison with conglomerates (I work in sustainable housing, community resilience and projects for the developing world) and do not intend to take this thread OTT so withdraw the comment, the facts remain that newcomers are not encouraged on certain beekeeping forums if they wish to explore "trends" and all I asked was that repeated comments that imply lack of knowledge based on the fact that you choose to only have a few hives be stopped. Where is the relevance? Perhaps I'll just add a couple of noughts to mine .

And the brace combing is observed every time we go on apiary visits in commercial and National boxes as a nuisance that the beekeeper must clear up. Is it not that the bees are unhappy with the nest smell/environment in their boxes and trying to improve things? The only thing that I have done in these commercials is take them back to 11 frames.

 

[Finman]

.
What I am not willng to listen all the time.

- TOP bar is something which saves the wolrd (beebox on backyard)

- Normal beekeeprs wax is contaminated with all poisons what you know in the world.

- TOP bar people take a good care oof bees (- Normal beekeeprs just tease creatures)

- Moving hives to better pastures is unnatural (- hah hah and hah)

- Top bar and nautural combs kill varroa ( haha hah and hah)

- TOP bar hive is cheap --- (as cheap as berrags life)

- real beekeeper TOP Bar only look all days when their bees fly -- (get a life)

- Freely mated queens = no breeding and no selection...

- no plastic ( however your car is soon mostly pastic)


Like my frien told me that I eate too much. ... I did not say that he drinks too much. He is almost alcoholic.


The best of all: In 47 years I have learned nothing about beekeeping.
Who ever one hiver owner knows more

Top bar folks has as big ego as that wooden stick.

 

[BKF Admin]

Very good post Norm.

I think we do pretty good for an unmoderated forum that relies on everyone being adult and accepting others opinions/ways of keeping bees.

 

[BKF Admin]

Top bar folks has as big ego as that wooden stick.

You mean some do Finman,you cant stereotype a whole movement,I know a few TBH owners who are happy to hear opinions for and against.
Take Norm as a very good example.

 

[Finman]

.
Norm is a good writer, but as he writes he does not want honey from hives.

As Norm said, I will never understand.

 

[Finman]

Take Norm as a very good example.

Not a bit!

After these beekeeping years ........haha hah

At least Norm should take that hat off.

.............

 

[susbees]

There are many ways of farming, some less acceptable than others to an individual and for lots of different reasons. To each his/her own but everyone has a right to have their views listened to as potentially valid.

All beekeepers should be concerned about possible contamination of honey and damage to bees/honey from pesticides etc.

Moving hives to the heather say is perfectly sensible, lugging hives the length of the US on a grand scale surely has disadvantages in terms of bee health.

Varroa debates will continue. As they should.

Beekeeping (in the UK, traditional hives/frames/foundation) IS expensive or you need a good workshop and expensive tools to make it cheaper (yeah, right). TBH is accessible.

Um, no, well not here. I am on the local bee breeding programme. If we farm bees, as we all do, then we must select. And appropriately. Why is selection incompatible with long hives?

Plastic? Lots of issues with plastic. Even recycled plastic. But perhaps beekeepers do not need to worry about the environment more than anyone else .

As for length of experience, and not a personal issue, one of my best beekeeping friends said on Saturday that he had kept bees 54 years but learnt almost everything in the last five.

As for egos - that is not the right word. TBH is like being vegetarian...regularly being put on the defensive by people who believe that their method is the only way.

 

[Finman]

I have worked 14 years at the city hall of Helsinki in environmental protection. I know something about area.

How many ways you can keep bees. Old proverb is that if you meet 20 beekeepers, you meet 20 ways.


We are many. But as far as we are inside of the law, all ways are accepted
Why some one else can say to me that forget your passed life and take this person way of life.

What I could take from Norm is to live winter in Spain and summer here.

But at the age of 63 I know so much that I am not worried about all things.
I have knowledge too so much that I do not see ghosts here and there.

*******

Seriously too, when have all kinds of autohorities in food industry, chemical, in beekeeping and what ever protecting agents, I trust them when something is poisonous or dangerous. I am not going to live mouse's life and be afraid of everything.

********

It so nice to plan another person's life.

***********

Don't do what I say. Use your own brains.

.

 

[Finman]

Moving hives to the heather say is perfectly sensible, lugging hives the length of the US on a grand scale surely has disadvantages in terms of bee health.
.

I think that US problem lays on winterin area. Beekeeprs gather,- was it 60%, of hives to California, Florida and to Texas. Thousands of hives are in small area. Often weather is 25C and it is summer but flowers are in winter rest.
Bees flye and search food but they get nothing. They just die. Bees have not winter rest there.

In Canada there is no CCD. USA is the only country where it has been identified. When you look US photos, the combs are awfully black. It seems that they do not renew them very often.

That bee heath. Of course they must be healty. Otherwise they do not get yield.

I wonder how TP bees are healty when beekeeprs do not know even diseases.

So much pure imagination and less knowledge. Sorry to repeat that.

It took me 7 years in beekeeping and after that I did not met bigger surprises any more. I had 20 hives. I wonder how one hive owner can be so wise after one year.

.

 

[MrMicawber]

Like most things, it is all down to personal attitudes and philosophies.

There are a few 'holier-than-thou' TBH users who always remind me of people who proclaim themselves to be vegetarians as if they deserve the Victoria Cross for it, followed by 'but I do eat fish.'

But then again there are the majority who are not like that at all.

Each to their own.

 

[Finman]

.
I like snails but they are very laborous to make food. Is it vegetarian food?

I have about 2000 helix pomatia snails wild in bushes.

 

[susbees]

I wonder how TP bees are healty when beekeeprs do not know even diseases.

So much pure imagination and less knowledge. Sorry to repeat that.

It took me 7 years in beekeeping and after that I did not met bigger surprises any more. I had 20 hives. I wonder how one hive owner can be so wise after one year.

.

TP bees? Task Partitioning bees or something else? A straight question.

And what is the grounds for another two digs at someone less experienced? Nothing in my last two posts needs more than peer-reviewed widely read scientific knowledge nor claims it. The internet is full of copy/paste, that is how popular knowledge can clearly be incorrectly spread. And of course there are degrees of variation in many things, equally correct.

Define this pure imagination. As for your dig about knowledge to trust the authorities to tell you when something is poisonous or dangerous is innocence itself.

Of course if I need practical ideas and mentoring from the knowledgeable I also know exactly where to get it....far from the blinkered "one hive, one year" continued rudeness (that's four or maybe five times now)...wherever did you get that idea in the first place?

 

[tonybloke]

Originally Posted by Finman View Post

I wonder how TP bees are healty when beekeeprs do not know even diseases.

Todays inspection
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/at...63hp?attachmentid=1755&stc=1&d=12750831633163

 

[Onge]

Nice

 

[Mike a]

Great pictures Tonybloke

I'll post some links of my TBH when I start one of the two hives at my main apiary in a few weeks time. but for now heres a reminder of the winter weather we've just had and the latest TBH I've made.

Hive 5

Hive 6

 

[Brosville]

Tonybloke - Lovely sight - how swiftly did they make that lot?

 

[susbees]

Great comb pictures. Lovely sight .

 

[Shakd]

Beekeeping hobby

Yes! A Top-bar is one of the most popular hives there is to date! Along side with langstroth hives, it has a ton of pro's to the design for beekeeping. Top Bar beekeeping is great for all ages, especially good on the backs, as many have already mentioned!

Let the Strong Hives Live!



Cheers!

 

[psafloyd]

Thank you so much for the "in"
Step back 200 years, to a gentler time, before man's arrogance presumed that nature was theirs to rape and pillage as they may - to bend it to their wills, to dominate and control it..........
If you're bee-all and end all is honey production, top bar hives won't maximise production, the whole focus is on allowing bees to "do their own thing" as much as possible - if you want to make money, probably not the way to go, if you want to save it on the other hand............
(to date, 2 top bar hives, one bait hive, one Warre, 3 colonies, all the gear I'll ever need, total outlay, about £130......)

It is far longer than 200 years ago that man lived in harmony with nature. The industrial revolution put paid to that.