Winter In A Top Bar Hive

Reader Contribution by Kim Flottum
1 / 2
2 / 2

We have decided what to do with the top bar hive for winter. We last examined it in mid-October to check out how much food it had. There’s 14 or 15 full size combs drawn out. The four in front had each had brood, but were mostly empty when we examined them. There was honey on the top, and a little pollen, but not much. Most of the rest of the combs had honey on the top half, a bit of pollen and not much else. There was brood in some combs…all told there was probably two full combs, both sides, of brood. The bottoms of every comb were empty. I did a quick estimate using a couple of combs, and guessed there was about 40, maybe as much as 50 pounds of honey in the hive…total. But there aren’t tons of bees in the hive, so that much honey should be OK. Maybe it’ll work out.

The front comb had separated from the top bar though. Of course it didn’t have far to fall, but it tipped and was resting on the end board of the hive. The entrance of the hive…several half-inch holes…are drilled in that board, at and below center, and the comb was leaning against the board just above those holes, so coming and going wasn’t hindered. It was just sitting there. It had brood, honey, bees, so removing it seemed unnecessary. We’ll fix it in the spring I guess.

They had cross-wired a couple of combs toward the back toward the end of summer, and when we found them we fixed them by cutting, removing the errant pieces (that two or three bites of really new honey is always, always the best honey there is), and they had mostly repaired the

rest, sticking to the top bar system…mostly.

Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368