Topbar Hives
While the Langstroth hive has become the norm in most of the world, the topbar hive ranks second globally in terms of hive designs used. In our previous piece on Langstroth hives, we talked about the pros and cons of these hive styles, and specifically how they’ve exploded in popularity because they work really well for industrial beekeeping. Despite the fact that the topbar is number two, it’s percentage-wise far less common. So what exactly is a topbar hive? Simply put, it’s having one medium instead of multiple, and instead of supers, the medium has additional frames added.
So it’s the same thing except, it’s completely different. There are a few obvious benefits this brings. The first is that we don’t have to deal with the issues of rotating mediums around like a weird game of musical chairs as we expand the hive. Less movement, less angry bees.
We’ve also talked about the importance of having deep frames as being a critical, underappreciated component to successful beekeeping, and topbars are much easier to incorporate this important feature. Deep supers are less than 10 inches, while most topbars can incorporate up to a 12-inch deep frame, and often more. People typically recommend 12 inches or less for fear the frame will become too heavy and break, which can happen for sure, but it’s not hard to build them to be slightly heavier duty.
The thing about topbar hives, and why they’re not used for commercial beekeeping is that they’re just large. They hold large frames, they have large footprints, and they’re just, big. For the bees, that’s pretty good. It allows them to develop and expand throughout the season without all the necessary Langstroth things. Just check on them once and a while and see if they need new frames.
As we stated before, Topbars aren’t as universal as Langstroths. With Langstroths you’ve got 3 box sizes; really 2, when you’re looking at 90% of people using them. Really, one. Today, 80% of the Langstroth hives are exclusively mediums. Deeps were more common in the past, and I hope they make more of a comeback, then there are shallows, which are still fairly uncommon but technically are an option. Topbars, however, have a lot of diversity— significantly more. They are also much more commonly built as DIY projects, like my own hive, which offers some benefits in terms of reducing the cost and allowing for some better insulation improvements in construction versus trying to retrofit langstroths, which in my experience is never easy.1, 2
Even though Topbars aren’t universal in size, there are some more popular ones, and you mostly will be fine with whatever you choose. The one that’s pretty popular is called the Golden Mean Hive. The golden mean hive is built using the golden mean ratio.
The point is that everyone has their own way of kinda figuring out what they think is the best size for a Topbar hive. As far as I’m concerned, as long as it’s deep enough for your climate, at least 12 inches, and they have some space beneath to deal with moisture from the winter, and you can insulate them somehow, you’re good.3 The insulation is really just bonus points, if you buy one you probably won’t get anything that really fits that.
Topbars have bars that the bees build natural hanging comb from; there are often no wax frames inserted like in a Langstroth hive, the bees build completely from scratch. Some folks, however, will add some wax for the hives to start from, but going without the added wax is considered by many Topbar folks to be healthier, even though it means more of the bee resources are tied up making the frames.4
While new beekeepers might expect that the hives will get closed up from the bees making wax everywhere, bees will keep traveling spaces through the hive, reducing the likelihood that they’d actually connect with the bottom or the sides. That said, and this is where things get a little funky with topbars, some people will build their topbars with flat sides and at the same width as a Langstroth to use Langstroth deep frames, and some even will make extended deep Langstroth frames, sometimes to the depth of even 18 or 20 inches.
So what are the benefits? The first is that the deeper hives are better for wintering because they will store their honey primarily on the top of the comb. The more honey, the longer they can camp out. Traditionally, topbars have been narrower than Langstroth, and the basis for this idea was that the narrower space more closely reflected the average interior dimensions of a tree hollow. Despite this, we don’t tend to see the same bee habits that we might see in a log hive— excessive use of propolis to protect the inside of the hive, for example— which suggests that while the size might work well for young colonies, it’s not a long-term ideal, and it’s probably not reflecting the average dimensions of tree hollows that the bees evolved for.
When you’re sizing out your hive, make sure it’s big enough in terms of width for traditional frames, if you wanna go that route. And you want to make sure they’re deep enough to fit frames that can store an appropriate amount of honey for the winter. But we should go deeper. Typically, beekeepers have documented significant success when having at least 5 inches beneath the lower entrance of the top bar hive to improve mite resistance.5 Basically, the mites can’t climb up 5 inches. Otherwise, when the lower entrance is situated at the very bottom of the hive, the bees come into contact with the mites as they enter and exit the hive, making the colony more vulnerable to repeated infestation.
We’ve made the point in the past that keeping the bees healthy is of the most concern because healthy bees can keep mites and diseases from taking over the hive. One of the challenges, particularly in cooler, moist climates like here is dealing with moisture buildup during the winter in particular. When the hives generate heat and exhale air, moisture is also exhaled, and if they’re doing that, the heat and the moisture trapped in it travel straight up in the hive only to cool, condense, and come back down. Not great for the bees, right?
Some researchers think that the entire inside of a natural hive is covered in propolis, and the water drips down the sides of the hive and pools at the bottom. Since we’ve worked to breed out propolis production from the bees we raise in apiaries in order to make accessing honey easier, they don’t produce a whole lot today, not nearly that much for sure. So we’ve gotta get a little more involved in this area.
With this in mind, it’s important like we said to have space below the entrance so that mites fall and can’t climb up, but also to have this space for water to pool into, unless you’re going to vent your hive through the bottom, which obviously means heating is gonna be more work. The goal is to limit air exchange, which limits heat exchange, but it does mean moisture build-up, which, as we pointed out, can be solved fairly easily as long as we plan for it. With these topbar hives, between the extra deep frames that I recommended and then this extra space beneath the entrance, the total hive depth comes to at least 20 inches.
To the point we started with, these are big, long hives, and that can be really intimidating for newbies especially because unlike Langstroths, there are a lot less fixed rules. People like to buy things that plug and play, and topbars fit the bill less, and there’s less information in general, compared to langstroths. Most of the work being done assessing topbars today is taking place in Africa, and with good success, so despite the fact I’m selling the topbar as a good hive for cooler climates, they obviously work in warmer climates too. There are a number of books out there to help you design and build your own and even simple articles focused on using a piece of plywood and a handful of two-by-fours, keeping costs to a minimum while building a hive that best meets the needs of your bees. Of course, keep in mind the measurements we’ve discussed, but many of these designs will have these measurements in mind as well!
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Mangum, W. A. (2013). The top-bar hive. Bee World, 90(1), 2–4. https://doi.org/10.1080/0005772x.2013.11417512
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308735346_Top_bar_hive_from_cheap_and_locally_available_non-timber_materials
“Beginner Lecture on Topbar Hives” Williamson County Beekeeping Club. https://www.youtu be.com/watch?v=IkPkRmBs2b0&t=1s
https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/agriculture/entomology/beekeeping/general/management/top_bar_faqs/tbhf.html
Lazutin, F. (2020). Keeping bees with a smile: A vision and practice of natural apiculture. Deep Snow Press.