Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[Adam B]

I read in many (most) forums and blogs that "Top Bar Hives Require More Constant Maintenance than Boxed hives" (Boxed being National, Langstroth, etc. depending upon location of the article.)

What is difficult is no one seems to say exactly what this additional maintenance IS or WHY it's needed.

Can anyone enlighten me on this?

[imago]

I'm curious to know where you read such things because I think it's the opposite.

[Adam B]

When I do research, I'll try to keep track of where I see this. I feel it's "very often" when looking at sites which talk about hive design. I did a quick search for "Top Bar vs..." and inserted a box style (Lang, Nat), and I got a bunch.
Just peruse the "Cons" section.

Here are some examples:

https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/langstroth-top-bar-or-warre-zbcz1310

https://mistressbeek.com/2010/09/19/top-bar-hive-vs-langstroth/

https://www.beeculture.com/experiences-top-bar-hive/

https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/the-difference-between-top-bar-vs-warre-vs-langstroth-hives-zbcz1608

http://www.talkingwithbees.com/beekeeping/beehives/top-bar-hives

Now there are some other great tidbits (that I don't really believe) which I found along the way:
Bees are often crushed between top-bars as the beekeeper rearranges the bars after removing them from the hive body. This problem can be serious when colonies are manipulated at night. When bees are crushed in this way, it is difficult to fix the last top-bar into place. Crushing bees is usually not a serious problem with frame hives.

A top-bar hive is relatively easy to steal, as it is light and compactly designed. It is more difficult to steal hives and supers arranged one above the other.

[wa1ter]

[wa1ter]

Forgot to say, as for the extra maintenance part... during expansion of the brood nest you'll have to pay a bit more attention to make sure your bees don't run out of space. Same during a heavy flow. But that's the only extra maintenance I can think of. And it's as easy as checking if they have enough space and if not, inserting a bar in the right place. If that's the extra maintenance they are talking about, I think I can live with that

Oh, and if you use warrés, according to Warré's principles, instead of horizontal hives you have a lot less maintenance than in most other hives.

[imago]

I've read through the linked pages. There are some interesting views but they never really get into the details of this extra maintenance.

I've two half dadant hives (originally bought to host dadant frames for futher transfers but they re-queened over the years) and they require more maintenance than my TBHs.

One must also note that there are differences between colonies : some build straight combs and do not fix them against the walls, some are weird, so it's difficult to generalise over a small sample size.

Anyway, it is true that modern hives were built with the idea of honey production, easy maintenance and easy move. I switched to TBH because I'm an hobbyist, I don't like to open a frame hive with a lot of smoke, I don't have to invest and store honey extraction material, I don't want to buy frames and waxes, I don't want to break my back. With the KTBH, hive inspection is a pleasure, does not require smoke and most of the time I even don't need to inspect it fully.

BTW it is true that it can be difficult to insert the last bar, in my recent hives I've added an extra 5 mm length to cope with bar expansion due to humidity or crushed bees.