Beekeeping photos

something a high club Hive?
A high club hive is a hive that uses top bars of some sort, as opposed to a four-sided frame like old-fashioned, Langstroth (square field) Hives. Numerous top pubs nonetheless utilize starter pieces of foundation, but at Steller Apiaries, we re-use our excess wax and begin a straight type of wax along the center of top club. This will act as a 'suggested outline' and permits the bees to understand where they may be able develop their particular comb without limiting their particular cell dimensions making use of stamped foundation.

Our top bar hives are long, in place of square, and previously have been described as Kenyan Top Bar Hives or Horizontal Hives; while the bee's build their particular brush horizontally without vertically. Our top bar hives tend to be completely customizable but our standard hive is 36" in length, 18" large and about 3-4' high (No beekeeper's right back here!) Our top pubs are 1 3/8" large, with 24 per hive. The width associated with top taverns tend to be certain to allow for bee area between your slow combs. No man-made spacers to interrupt the bee's normal development and nothing to hinder the bee's nest aroma and/or temperature retention!

We utilize end entrances at Steller Apiaries, indicating our entry isn't from the lengthy region of the hive, it stands at one end. Research indicates that end entrances maintain the queen from moving beyond her brood chamber, pushing the bees to get results front to back and eliminating the necessity for two follower boards. In mid-hive entrances the queen has got the chance to start at one end, and work to one other with space remaining on either end for the hive. Come winter time this can affect the means the bees will cluster and consume their particular honey through the wintertime.
Top club hives, in one single type or any other, are used for thousands of years. There are also depictions of top pubs getting used in Greece; they merely used a fired clay cooking pot or woven container turned inverted and sticks laid throughout the top. They truly are probably one of the most standard ways of managing bees, as they are an easy task to build, easy to manage and and are usually more advanced than a skep or other cavity from which the comb can't be easily eliminated.

The reason why top taverns?
Top bar hives tend to be less costly to create or have built than Langstroth hives or other comparable frame-dependent hives. Top club hives do not require heavy lifting in the shape of honey supers, additional frames, foundation, or queen excluder's. An entire super of honey can consider to 50 lbs, a single honey-laden top club weighs between 3-5 lbs! Additionally you don't require excess products or other costly tools; the hives tend to be completely self-contained beehives.

And also being cheap to old-fashioned equipment, top bar hives tend to be considerably easier to work with than a Langstroth hive. Our top club hives consist of a full human anatomy observation window, which eases the stress on the bees as it pertains time for you to examine. The removal of the follower board and only one top bar at the same time lets you keep temperature and nest scent, hence leaving the colony practically undisturbed, and may make you feel that your bees seem less intense toward your existence.

The reason why OUR top bars hives?
We securely have confidence in top bar hives together with alternative strategy, so why our hives? Well, we utilize regional, high quality materials and our hive has-been adjusted to deal with unique cold climates typical in Michigan and other mid-western says. We utilize a hive material this is certainly 1 3/4" thick, meaning we have the full inch even more insulating product in the middle of your bees while the cool within our hives instead of our competitor's. We totally modify your hive, based on what you are looking for. From roofing products to your sort of lumber, to exterior finishes and custom paint jobs, we could do so all! Lastly, we're a family-owned company. When you support united states, you're directly encouraging a local family members in a nearby community

We use special-cut top bars that will advertise both comb production and stability. We don't use any kind of basis that may be misleading towards the bees and market consistent comb production. We spot a liquid wax range along the center of our top bars, once hardened, the wax serves as merely a 'sniffer' range or a suggestion range the bees to-draw their particular comb.

Our top taverns fit closely together to produce a false roofing, further insulating the bees and limiting the increased loss of heat and nest scent, and encouraging the bees to create unique needed 'hi-ways' and 'bee-space.'

Top club hive advantages
Our strategy actually perfect, and then we're not attempting to claim it as a result. We just believe there clearly was an alternative and this technique works more effectively for united states and then we think it could are better available.

• Cost-Less than a typical Langstroth with no additional materials/supplies have to be bought!
• Management –Huge benefits in ease of handling a self-contained hive with no heavy lifting
• Enjoyment –Hello, you’re preserving the bees AND pollinating regional meals resources
• Honey Harvesting –Crush and strain technique is straightforward and more economical than commercial beekeeping
• No requirement for supers, frames, basis or extractors

Top bar hive drawbacks
With any method of beekeeping you can find pros and cons. No technique is ideal (not really ours) exactly what does matter is you assisting your small pollinating buddies!

• Few suppliers-there tend to be far less outlets available to get products compared to commercial beekeeping methods.
• Decreased standarzidation-Everything can appear different and it's occasionally a guessing online game, however, if you discover one supplier (like united states!) it is much easier, and it's for the advantageous asset of the bee's!
• Stigma-there is normally a poor stigma of making use of and alternative beekeeping technique. Whatever your factors. do what you would like to complete the reasons you want to do all of them! Our method isn't perfect, and now we're perhaps not right here to claim its; we merely think there are choices nowadays and you ought to know about all of them, too; Having an objective for the bees is really what's vital and also you know you're doing wonders for the local farming!

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Unlike most of our competitors, our hives tend to be customizable and include both a roof and feet – whatever you should offer is a spot and your bees! With the legs connected the top of the hive is around 3 feet large, making the hive easy to work without a “beekeeper’s straight back” from heavy-lifting.

NEST SCENT & HEAT RETENTION
The Queen honey bee releases a natural pheromone that notifications and informs the bees regarding the general health and safety regarding the colony. She releases a scent that keeps her employee bees hectic performing their particular duty inside the hive. Using a top club hive technique enables the queens all-natural scent to-be retained within the hive because top pubs fit collectively much more securely than in a regular Langstroth (square package) hive. Utilizing the top bar permits us to maintain the bees nest scent and created temperature by detatching the air spaces or 'bee area' between each top club. Using standard frames creates a wind tunnel result, releasing every one of the heat and scent out from the top of the hive each time it really is established. Regenerating that heat and nest aroma takes energy, this means your bees tend to be eating more honey to restore just what sources which were lost.