I highly recommend building one. It's a really fun project and the top bar bees kinda just do their own thing, which is fine with me. I have 30 Lang's to manage so I don't need to pester these ones too much, lol. I take a peek inside 2 or 3 times a year just to make sure nothing weird is going on inside and other than that let them do their own thing. This hive swarmed a couple months back and seem to not be so aggressive as they were. I bought a few queens last year from a breeder with more gentle genetics than mine and I'm thinking their drones might have helped mellow some of my new queens out a bit.

I've been keeping bees for years. They don't need to be handled like eggs. This particular hive will send a bunch of guard bees out when you are just walking by and deliver multiple stings, because of their semi Africanized feral genetics. When you have as many hives as I do you don't have time to tip toe around every single one or the inspections would never get done. I try to be as gentile as I can at the same time I try to be quick with my inspections. This top bar hive fits so tightly together, there is no way to pry the end bars out after they've been propolized other than to be less than gentle.

@@jaredmccutcheon5496 What you wrote above is not a valid point for excuse. Mate, before opening the bars you've already alerted the bees. You do need to improve this aspect of your beekeeping.

I'd actually be surprised if it's the original queen from that swarm at this point. She would be over 3 years old now if it was.

Isn't it the drones that are the problem though? Africanised queen + european drone = good bees. European queen + africanised drone = flamethrower job

Dan Rob, yes and no. The drones come from hot queens, so they perpetuate the problem, but the entire population carries some degree of Africanized blood, so if the right combination meets up they can be worse than normal to handle. I try to make sure to remove drone brood from colonies that are the most aggressive so I don't get their drones mating with queens I make from the more gentle colonies.

They are at one end. I used 3 champagne corks on the end and 3 on the side on the same end. I usually keep the end plugged and make them use the side until they blown up in summer then give them more holes to come and go from but they're all at one end.

George Garcia , I’m glad you understand the difference between Africanized bees and Africanized genetics. It seems too many people think they either are or are not Africanized, but the percentage of that genetic material effects the temperament of the individual hive, and as the queen uses different genetic material from all the various drones she originally mated with the temperament can shift dramatically. I allowed this hive to swarm this summer and they are much more gentle than they were when I made this video. Thanks for watching and thanks for your constructive comment!

I think a good comparison would be the PRAH.. Puerto Rican Africanized Honeybees. They killed off the high;y aggressive AHs, and being an island, they had no where to go, and no new AH genetics came in. From what I have heard, they are as gentle as Italians, but very aggressive when it comes to varroa. And sadly, after being hit with Maria, it seems they are struggling. I think we would do well to try to import and inseminate some of our queens here on the mainland with their drone semen, if not actually importing some of their queens. Anyway, the point is, the hyper aggressive swarms are killed here as well. Except being as there is more open spaces, it's harder to get all the aggressive feral AHs, which means their genetics are still an issue.. However, it's slowly working, in so far as selecting away from the aggression that the AH have, as the more aggressive bees are killed.

They're not the ones like you find in Arizona, but almost all of the feral bee populations in central and southern California have some Africanized genetics in them. Even if you buy queens from an area that has no Africanized genetics around, the subsequent generations of queens raised in this area will mate with the feral drones and perpetuate those traits, although they get pretty diluted. What happens is you get bees that in general are docile enough to keep as long as you don't mess with them, but are more agressive when inspected. I get stung regularly just walking across my lawn minding my own business, but never like you hear about when they attack by the hundreds.

Jared Mccutcheon Hey! Don't be hating on my Arizona bees. Sure if you come within 50 feet you might end up in the hospital, but their honey is amazing and will help with recovery. ;)

Domino52o , Hahaha, I know how that is. I have a few almost that bad, but I just keep them in my out yards. Gotta work with what's available, and feral bees are the toughest bees.

Yeah no doubt, gotta keep them red headed step children away from the good kids, less the good kids begin picking up bad habits. Lol.

50 feet? Really? We are building a bee yard on the farthest corner of our acre but it is also in the far corner of the 1/2 acre horse pasture with the fence being 30 to 40 feet from where the hives will be in the corner..They rarely go there but if they do and get pegged I hope they learn to stay away :/

I wanted them to be able to build up as big as they wanted without me having to split them all the time so I made it XXL sized, lol. They only swarmed once in 2 years and the swarm was huge, and there were still lots of bees left in the top bar. I really like this hive and the minimal management it takes. Thinking of building a few more.

Thank you. When I was kinda designing this top bar hive I looked at a lot of other ones, and some of my friends have them with lids that you just set on the ground. I wanted mine to be hinged so it would just set down perfectly aligned with the bars without having to fiddle with it, lol.

Jared Mccutcheon what type of hinge did you use..?

Just a couple of 3" zinc coated butt hinges.

Thank You!

Be more gentle to the bees please.

Thanks! Beekeeping is awesome and how cool is it your kids are interested too! Such a fun and rewarding hobby. I hope you can give it a try!

@@jaredmccutcheon5496 they where sitting next to me and when they saw the bees they want to know everything about it and where very interested

They’re actually pretty popular with people who like to take a more natural approach to beekeeping because they allow the bees to build their own wax in a hollow area, kinda like a down tree or something. They are also less expensive to set up. It’s not too bad to inspect as long as you do it often and don’t let them have lots of time to build a bunch of brace comb on the sides of the box. I leave my top bars alone mostly, and maybe just check once or twice a year. They were mostly for fun than they were for trying to produce honey. Langstroth equipment is definitely the best system to use for extracted honey

Actually they are very easy to work and bees do not get get as upset when you work them compared to Langstroth hives. you can make them out of a Pallet and a sheet of iron or cut a 200 ltr drum in half and you have 2 for next to nothing, they are very low maintenance but tend not to produce as much honey as the much more expensive Langstroth hive. Not suitable for migratory beekeeping. I have 45 Langstroth hives, 1 French Layens hive one, 1 Russian long hive, 1 long Langstroth hive, and 2 Top Bar Hives, I love my Top Bar hives and would not be without them.

@@MegaDavyk Congratulations! Me, I've built my two first KTBH in these months of lockdown. I used the first one as a swarm trap and last June, 21they arrived! I think I'll use the second one as a sort of horizontal "expansion" for honey combs with a trapezoidal queen excluder. The second one has also a side window and a internal feeding area (both forgot in the first one, this is why I want to connect both hives as one thing). :P Me too I dream to build a Warrè and a Langstroth in the future. Bye from Italy, guys! Ath.

Thanks for your nice comments. The top is sheet metal on top of LP Smartside siding that I had left over from something else, and the orange paint is just some spray paint I had a couple cans left over from some other project. I probably should paint it with some latex paint but I kinda like the funky orange beehive, lol.

@@jaredmccutcheon5496 thank you Jared :) I guess I'm gonna have to pimp up my hive with metal sheet. Can't wait for spring g to start it :)

Also, how long before it turned mean? And could it have been because of a dearth? Did they continue to get meaner as time went on? I recently seen a lecture that said they discovered it's the drone that caries the aggressive DNA. There is so much to learn!

North to Hope , these bees got mean as soon as they were no longer a tiny swarm and they had brood and honey stores to protect. On a hot day I can't go within 100 feet of the hive without at least getting flybys and usually I'll get stung too. On cooler days they tend to be more tolerant and I can at least work in the yard without much trouble. My chickens go all around the hives with no issues, no other livestock around them though. Yes the drones are the problem. You can order a bred queen and have very gentle bees as long as she is laying, but if they swarm and the new queen mates with feral drones, you can have africanised genetics in the hive.

These would come after anyone walking in the yard within 100 feet and chase you into the house before I pinched the queen. All of our feral bees here have some degree of Africanized genetics in them. Some are worse than others. The queen that was in this hive produced 3 other queens much worse than these when I made splits from her before they were in this top bar. I had to requeen all 4 because they were unworkable and nobody could walk through the yard without getting stung mutile times. Opening up any of the 4 hives would have several hundred bees swarm out and try to sting you just for popping the lid.

Yeah, I’m still here. I’ll be putting some more vids up this spring. I been thinking of building another top bar and maybe a few top bar nucs and trying to film the process.

I think that was their second spring in the top bar hive. It was a swarm from one of my Langstroth hives so the queen was probably about 3 years old. I originally got that queen from a feral swarm across town a couple years before this.