Horizontal Top Bar Hives

Bees seemed like a good first step (after the worms) to add to my livestock variety and count.  After not so much deliberation (but enough to make a knowledgeable decision) I decided to follow the ways of a UK bee expert, P.J. Chandler.  He describes his method as "barefoot beekeeping" or minimalist (not hippie) beekeeping.  After reading The Barefoot Beekeeper twice, I started attempting to design and build the horizontal top bar hive (HTBH).  This hive has many advantages that I liked;  the most notable being:

• No heavy lifting
• Mouse proof
• Easy to control swarming and multiple colonies (if deciding to be more involved)
• Excellent winter insulation
• Mesh floor in spring/summer for mite control

Luckily, P.J. wrote a supplement to The Barefoot Beekeeper on making HTBHs.  It was a good reference, but my Dad and I soon discovered that it could have been written a little better.  We got a little confused from time to time.

Materials

The materials are quite simple, and the cost was pretty reasonable as well.  For the wood, I chose red cedar.  Cedar is supposed to be a nice and hardy wood that won't rot as fast as the others.  The man at the store also told us that you want your cedar boards to not have white streaks in them.  The white streaks were apparently weaker wood than the red streaks.  Any of the materials used were high quality materials (if not the highest I could find) and all natural.  The rule of thumb when building a beehive - if you won't put it on your skin, don't put it on your hive.

Overall materials cost:

• Wood (non-treated cedar) - $212.29
• Outer coating (replacing paint to keep it natural)
• Raw Linseed Oil - $28.99
• Beeswax - $6.99
• Note:  the amount I bought could have easily covered 5 hives
• Nails/Screws/Bolts - $20.22
• Wire Mesh:  ~$5.00
• Roofing materials (shingles and underlayer):  FREE!  Thanks to my brother's friend!

Total cost of the high quality materials ends up being $273.49.  This made me feel better knowing that places were selling hives at a much higher cost for much lower quality of materials.

Construction

I'm not going to go into the details of the construction, mainly due to me just repeating what P.J. Chandler wrote in his book.  I am going to force support for him and urge you to purchase his $1.99 ebook in order to get the exact measurements and such.  In this post, I'm just going to highlight a few things that my Dad and I finally figured out after re-reading the book several times or after we started construction.

The construction is really completed in two different stages, the main body of the hive and then the roof.  The roof must be done after the main body in order to ensure that it fits appropriately.  The last thing that needs to be done is getting the topbars in place.

Left to right:  boards cut for the ends, sides, roof, floor, and legs

We discovered the importance of follower boards very quickly.  Our first mistake was not taking enough time to get the follower boards in better and more consistent measurements with each other.  These boards and their angles determine the angles of the hive.  They will also be the barriers for the bees, so making sure they are snug throughout the hive no matter where they are is important not only to keep the bees warm, but to keep them in the compartment that you want them in!  P.J. puts a formula in his book.  If you are planning on deviating from any of his measurements, be sure to make the follower boards according to the formula!

Follower  boards

The topbars are what the bees are actually going to be making the honey on.  They basically just sit loosely between the roof and the main body of the hive.  We could potentially have issues with raccoons and the way the topbars are just sitting there, but I guess we will see!  None of my research uncovered others having this issue with raccoons.  So I guess we'll see!

Hive without the topbars in place and with the corks to plug the holes

Hive with topbars in place

Side view of the hive with hooks (to keep out the raccoons)

Mesh floor.  We reinforced it with additional boards on the bottom so raccoons wouldn't peel it off.

In addition to P.J. Chandler's design, we did a little more raccoon proofing (since the UK doesn't have raccoon issues).  And once we cleared up the confusion we had with his design regarding 1 - the importance of the follower boards and 2 - how the topbars were set on the hive loosely, we did pretty well!  I will keep you posted on how the hives fair.  We are already planning on fixing the errors on the follower boards once we have a break in the bees, and hopefully that will be the only modification for us amateur beehive makers! But really only time and the bees will tell.