A Top Bar Honeybee Hive (a.k.a. the “Honey Cow”)

I’ve been building all sorts of beneficial insect habitats and hotels over the past few months, as I finish installing a food forest design. One of the last components of this little edible ecosystem I am going to add is a top bar beehive.

This subset of beehive designs is one of the oldest modes of beekeeping, and mimics the way bees build their combs in nature. A beeswax-coated bar is placed over a protected cavity, and the bees build the rest in the form of the vessel.

Short top-bar hive from Greece, as depicted in 1682: Wikimedia Commons

It is both a productive, and apicentric mode of beekeeping. Designs can be adapted to account for what materials are locally available, and the system can thrive with little to no upkeep. 

An interpretation of “The Honey Cow,”
by James Satterfield in Canton, Georgia, USA

My father-in-law works at the municipal recycling station, so I am going to try build a simple small top bar hive with a window, using what recycled materials and timber he can find for the project. After which time, I just need to come into some European Honeybees!

Images:  Medina Beekeepers User: Mike Rossander/Adventures with a Top-Bar Hive; Talking with Bees