Top-Bar Beekeeping: Organic Practices for Honeybee Health

by Les Crowder, Heather Harrell

Overview

Top-Bar Beekeeping is an offering designed to encourage beekeepers around the world to keep bees naturally by providing beekeeping basics, hive management and the utilization of top-bar hives.

In recent years, beekeepers have had to face tremendous challenges, from pests, such as varroa and tracheal mites, to the mysterious but even more devastating phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Yet in backyards and on rooftops all over the world, bees are being raised successfully, even without antibiotics, miticides, or other chemical inputs. More and more organically-minded beekeepers are now using top-bar hives, in which the shape of the interior resembles a hollow log. Long lasting and completely biodegradable, a top-bar hive made of untreated wood allows bees to build comb naturally rather than simply filling prefabricated foundation frames in a typical box hive with added supers.

Top-bar hives yield slightly less honey but produce more beeswax than a typical Langstroth box hive. Regular hive inspection and the removal of old combs helps to keep bees healthier and naturally disease-free.

Top-Bar Beekeeping provides complete information on hive management and other aspects of using these innovative hives. All home and hobbyist beekeepers who have the time and interest in keeping bees intensively should consider the natural, low-stress methods outlined in this book. It will also appeal to home orchardists, gardeners, and permaculture practitioners who look to bees for pollination as well as honey or beeswax.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781603584616
Publisher:	Chelsea Green Publishing
Publication date:	08/31/2012
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	338,972
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Les Crowder has devoted his entire adult life to the study and care of honeybees. Dedicated to finding organic and natural solutions for problems commonly treated with chemicals, he designed his own top-bar hives and set about discovering how to treat disease and genetic weaknesses through plant medicine and selective breeding. He has been a leader in his community, having served as New Mexico's honeybee inspector and president of the New Mexico Beekeepers Association. He is an avid storyteller and has spoken annually at the NM Organic Farm Conference for over fifteen years. Les is also a certified teacher and enjoys teaching children Spanish and science.

Heather Harrell moved to New Mexico in 1996 from her home state of Vermont to pursue her masters degree in Eastern Classics, having long had an interest in the art of meditation and yoga and a yearning to pursue a career in academia. Her love of nature soon had her pursuing a life as an organic farmer, focusing on flowers, then medicinal herbs. Over time, and through her work with honeybees, she has moved her focus to the study of multi-use permaculture plantings, which support a diverse network of interrelationships in the natural world. Along with a wide variety of vegetables, she grows medicinal herbs, which offer nectar and pollen to pollinator species. She is very interested in how soil biology is affected by using biodynamic methods of planting, and is currently studying compost teas incorporating various types of manures and plant materials.

Table of Contents

Notes from Les Crowder vii

Acknowledgments viii

To Them Both ix

Introduction xi

1 Top-Bar Hives 1

Pros and Cons 3

Top-Bar Hive Design 8

2 The Supercreature 14

Worker Bees 15

The Queen Bee 16

Drones 18

3 Beekeeping Basics 21

The Sting 22

Lighting a Smoker 25

Hive Placement 26

Obtaining Bees 28

Packages 29

Catching Swarms 31

Hive Removals 35

Trapping 38

Local Nucleus Hives 39

Transferring Bees from a Langstroth Hive to a Top-Bar Hive 41

Moving Bees 42

4 Hive Management 45

Removing Old Comb 60

Killing Bees 62

To Feed or Not to Feed 64

5 The Seasons 69

Spring 69

Swarming 71

Making Divides 73

The Two-Queen System 81

Summer 82

Bearded Hives 84

Mixed-Origin Divides 84

Fall and Winter 85

Combining Hives 86

Bears 57

Hive Insulation 88

6 Honey, Beeswax, and Other Products 90

Harvesting Honey 90

Processing Honey 94

Comb Honey 96

Varietal Honeys 97

Marketing Raw Honey 98

Beeswax 100

Propolis 104

Royal Jelly 106

7 Evaluating Your Queen 107

Requeening 109

Requeening Aggressive Hives 111

Robbing 112

Intercaste Queens 113

Drone-Laying Queens 113

Laying Workers 114

8 Problem-Solving 117

Chalkbrood 117

Foulbrood 119

Tracheal Mites 121

Varroa Mites 122

Nosema 126

Finding Good Genetics 126

Symptoms of Insecticides 128

Colony Collapse Disorder 129

Wax Moths 130

9 Raising Queens 132

Selection Criteria 133

Creating Favorable Conditions for Queen Cells 135

Equipment 136

Mating Nucs 137

Mating Nuc Placement 138

The Cell-Builder 139

Setting Up the Graft 140

The Graft 143

Managing Mating Nucs 148

Caging Queens 149

Queen Banks 152

10 Planting for Bees 154

Trees 156

Shrubs 156

Perennials 157

Cover Crops 158

Annuals 158

Conclusion 160

Notes 162

Selected Bibliography 165

Resources 166

Index 167

Editorial Reviews

Cave drawings show beekeepers “smoking” their hives, preparing for insect interaction. Today’s mass-produced honey relies mostly on the venerable Langstroth method of beekeeping, which has produced plenty of honey—but also has introduced plenty of chemicals into the process—through the years. Top-bar hives, named for the bars that run across their tops, are popular with bee beginners even though they produce less honey than Langstroth hives. But this account, the culmination of Crowder and Harrell’s 40 years of top-bar beekeeping adventures, shows the reader their method’s advantages: it avoids antibiotics, miticides, and other chemicals inherent to the conventional process. Crowder and his wife, Harrell, leave no comb unharvested as they take the top-bar aspirant from bee basics (stings, smoke, and hive transfers) through hive management (comb removal and feeding) to beneficial, and profitable, byproducts like beeswax. For those a bit lukewarm to the swarm, the book gives a fascinating insight into bees’ elaborate organizational and geometry skills, and it may even make one reconsider buying mass-marketed, chemical-laced honey. (Sept. 15)

Publishers Weekly

ForeWord Reviews-
"Farmers who seek a guide to hive maintenance told through a thoughtful personal narrative will benefit from the discussion of this topbar style of beekeeping. The first-person style of the book allows a window into the practices of the topbar beekeeper while conveying a wealth of knowledge and a well-researched comparison of hive practices. The book is appropriate for beginning beekeepers as well as those experienced but looking for information on natural and organic beekeeping practices. The book’s ten sections discuss optimal practices of an organic beekeeper juxtaposed with discussion of industry standard practices and their drawbacks. Each section contains stories of the authors’ successes and failures as well as diagrams and pictures to explain everything from hive design to plant species for optimal pollination. Whether the reader is looking to start their own hive or simply increase their knowledge of honeybees, the book provides interesting and detailed discussions of all aspects of raising them. Crowder and Harrell offer not only advice on how to get started, but an in-depth discussion of all aspects of keeping a hive, from bee capture, breeding, and selection to honey processing. They have crafted a book that is both informative and engaging, filled with introspective advice and practical knowledge."

Publisher's Weekly-
"Cave drawings show beekeepers “smoking” their hives, preparing for insect interaction. Today’s mass-produced honey relies mostly on the venerable Langstroth method of beekeeping, which has produced plenty of honey—but also has introduced plenty of chemicals into the process—through the years. Top-bar hives, named for the bars that run across their tops, are popular with bee beginners even though they produce less honey than Langstroth hives. But this account, the culmination of Crowder and Harrell’s 40 years of top-bar beekeeping adventures, shows the reader their method’s advantages: it avoids antibiotics, miticides, and other chemicals inherent to the conventional process. Crowder and his wife, Harrell, leave no comb unharvested as they take the top-bar aspirant from bee basics (stings, smoke, and hive transfers) through hive management (comb removal and feeding) to beneficial, and profitable, byproducts like beeswax. For those a bit lukewarm to the swarm, the book gives a fascinating insight into bees’ elaborate organizational and geometry skills, and it may even make one reconsider buying mass-marketed, chemical-laced honey."

"Reading Top-Bar Beekeeping reminds me of the classes I took with Les Crowder several years ago. He's a man who truly knows whereof he speaks, who has the gift of communicating with his small friends, the bees, and sharing his understanding with us. . . . This is the one book on beekeeping that I will recommend to my permaculture students."—Scott Pittman, Director, Permaculture Institute USA

"This is an excellent guide for hobby beekeepers who wish to keep bees using top-bar hives. Drawing on his more than 30 years of beekeeping experience in New Mexico, author Les Crowder describes in detail the special comb management techniques that this low-cost, but relatively intensive, form of beekeeping requires. Top-Bar Beekeeping also provides an eloquent appeal for beekeepers to make care, respect, and reverence the foundation of their relationships with the bees."—Thomas D. Seeley, Cornell University; author of Honeybee Democracy and The Wisdom of the Hive

"This book presents practical advice, gained from first-hand experience, on the organic management of top bar hives. This book will serve as an excellent guide to the ever-growing number of beekeepers that utilizes less intrusive management schemes such as top bar hives. Thanks to Les and Heather for their efforts to provide sound advice on natural ways to keep bees."—Dr. Jeff Pettis, USDA-ARS

From the Publisher