Top Bar Hive - Top Bar Beekeeping

Useful Plants for your Bee Garden

Raspberry



Easy to grow and full of antioxidants. Bees love it in the spring. They gather pollen and nectar and are all over the plant keeping it pollinated to give you the best possible harvest in the late summer and early autumn. The leaves can also be used to make tea.

Cherry Tree



Great early spring nectar and pollen source for bees. Just at the right time for the bees needs. You will not harvest honey from Cherry with couple of trees but I urge all beekeepers to provide at least one tree around the hives because bees love it and you will love it too along with your and neighbour's kids :)

Purple Coneflower



This flower is the Queen in my garden. I see myself planting it more and more. Bees love it and the whole family is making tea and tincture. It is believed to be one of the best immune system building herbs. So it is useful for you and for bees. After two years you can even use roots to make tincture but I just leave it there for my bees and only take some flowering head here and there.

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Colony Development in TBH

It is commonly known that swarm will develop quickly in small space, in TBH maybe even better than in conventional hives. Freedom that bees have in Top Bar Hives to build their own comb without frames and foundation is in my opinion positive factor in colony development.

Swarm that I catched on my Quince tree is "listening" to me. They are booming. Activity is very high. Small space with only 12 top bars suits them well and queen is laying eggs through the whole hive and nectar gathering is in high speen.

The way is pure white. See the honey patch on top of the combs. This one will sure be put into bigger, productive Top Bar Hive next year.

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TBH Beeyard Swarm Catching

10am in the morning. Bees are becoming more and more active. They are preparing to swarm. The old queen along with half of the bees in the hive will leave the hive and establish themselves in nature. Here is where I come in. Will try to catch them and hive them into small TBH.

Video of the bees swarming :

Quince tree is suitable they think :)

After I collected the swarm small Top Bar Hive was waiting to get populated by bees.



Bees are in Top Bar Hive :



Closing the Hive :



We leave them alone now so that they can establish new home in their new Top Bar Hive.

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