Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[masarin]

Made this Monster Top Bar Hive to withstand the northern Swedish Winters.

It has double walls insulated with 50mm polystyren. Nice and warm for winter days with down to -40 degrees Celcius.

It has no legs, and uses a solid bottom.

This time I also opted for 25mm top bars whith 7mm/13mm spacers for brood/honey -comb.

[Chardyboy]

Nice photos - but I thought horses were allergic to bee stings in a really bad way?

Regards

Dave

[MObeek]

That is big! Is the roof very heavy? And could you please tell me what the purpose is of the plastic sheets around the stand's legs and under the hive? Wouldn't the hive slide off when a strong sustained gust of wind blows through?

[masarin]

The roof is made of very thin wood and isn't very heavy by it self, but the roofing felt that I put on top of it is thick and heavy. So its quite heavy, but I can easily lift it on and of.

This spring I my first hive was attacked by ants, so I put vaselin and chinnamon on the legs, but as there been a cold spring the vaselin was a bit to hard, so the ants walked right over it. I then got panic and put tar on the legs and discovered that it smelled like smoke or fire, and I was afraid the bees would leave. The tar seemed to work though, and theres no more ants in the hive.

Then i found a post in a swedish forum saying that you could put four cheets of plastic under your hive and cut it so it sticks out a couple of centimeters, and the ants should not bee able to klimb around it. So I will put it there and try it out for next spring to see if it works.

[AnnetteSimone]

hei Masarin,

How about your experiences so far with yr very thick walls; 7,5cm? Do you notice a difference between this one and your earlier TBHs with thinner walls?
At my place it usually is -12C, but a very seldom time it can become -22C. What would you recommend me?''

I am building my first 4 TBHs right now: walls of tree, mostly 48 mm, southern side 36 mm. Do you have experiences with this type; bad or good?

Vh, Annette

[Rairdog]

Looks good. Thanks for the tip about plastic.