Pdf Kenyan Top Bar Hive Plans

The colorado top bar beehive.

Pdf kenyan top bar hive plans.

Building a top bar hive once you have built your hive i strongly recommend a practical training course before you add bees. Constructing a kenya top bar hive written by george. The kenyan top bar hive has a box with sloped sides whereas the tanzanian top bar hive has a rectangular box. The kenyan was designed to be low tech low cost and simple to build using available materials.

There are different types of hives used in beekeeping in kenya but the most important for commercial purposes are two the kenya top bar hive ktbh and the langstroth hives. This groove locks the top bars into place on the side board. The free plans will enable you to build a working top bar hive using simple tools and readily obtainable timber. Top bar hives are perfect for small scale beekeeping or hobbyist who doesn t want to lift more than 40lbs.

Hive design movable comb top bar top bar hives are easier and cheaper to make than frame hives yet have some advantages of movable comb technology. 38 langstroth top bar and warre hive plans 1. As well as htbh such as the kenyan and tanzanian there are also vtbh vertical such as the warre. Top bar hives are low tech old style configurations of hives.

Bfd93 top bar hive hj 301109 1412 words 1 practical beekeeping making a top bar hive janet lowore monica barlow and mark loveday bees for development keywords. At a high level it is effectively a box on legs with a cover. Cut another groove about 5mm deep across the underside of top bar 15mm from one end. Rip a small channel down the centre of the remaining 29 top bars about 5mm deep and long enough that 3 icy pole sticks can sit in the groove.

Or do you prefer to buy one. If you want more detail with backgtound information and more pictures you may like to buy my book balanced beekeeping i. Warre hives are the middle ground between langstroth and top bar. As discussed in the wikipedia article referenced above top bar hives with vertical side walls are often referred to as tanzanian and top bar hives with sloped side walls are referred to as kenyan widespread experience indicates that bees have fewer tendencies to attach comb to the sloped side walls of the kenyan top bar hive.

The top bar hive is designed with the beekeeper in mind both in terms of the construction effort and the management of the hive once installed. Biobees has published an ebook with photos on building your own tbh. The example pictured above the one i built was a luxury version with all new pine.