Top-Bar Beekeeping with Vikki Atkinson (350)

350 - Top-Bar Beekeeping with Vikki Atkinson

Ada: Hello. This is Ada Fredieu from Newbury, Vermont. My dad and I operate Ada Sweet Bees Apiary. We have eight hives. Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast.

[music]

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast, presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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Jeff: Hey, a quick shout-out to Betterbee and all of our sponsors, whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on the website. There, you can read up on all of our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for, download, and listen to over 300 past episodes, read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each episode, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtoday.com. Thank you, Ada, from Newbury, Vermont. What a great opening she left us.

Becky: I absolutely love that opening, and what I love even more is that she sent us a picture of her honey labels, and she's got a little business started there. She's the future of beekeeping.

Jeff: I love it. That is motivation and pride in what you're doing. I enjoy it. Ada, that is wonderful. Please keep in touch. Let us know how you're doing.

Becky: Absolutely.

Jeff: This is another fun opening to the podcast. We have an announcement of a new sponsor to the podcast and a new promotion we're doing with that sponsor.

Becky: I'm so excited about this because, one, it's a great sponsor, but two, it involves our listeners, and our listeners are going to-- I think they're going to get on board and have some fun with this, and maybe we're going to learn something along the way.

Jeff: Absolutely. We have something new and exciting for our listeners, something shiny, something every beekeeper uses.

Becky: Something every beekeeper loses.

Jeff: Some of us more than others.

[laughter]

Jeff: The HiveIQ produces an expanded styrene hive that is thermally superior by design with an insulation value six times greater than wood. I have a couple, and I really like them. HiveIQ wanted to join as a sponsor, but wanted to do something a little bit different than a ad, so we've come up with a giveaway for HiveIQ.

Becky: Our listeners are going to benefit, but they're going to have to work a little bit for this.

Jeff: That's right. First, HiveIQ has supplied us with their specially designed and beautiful hive tool to give away for this promotion. You can go to our website and see a photo of this custom HiveIQ and BeekeepingToday Podcast branded hive tool. Becky, what do listeners have to do to receive a HiveIQ, BTP, BeekeepingToday Podcast hive tool?

Becky: I think that you and I have agreed that we're calling this segment Q&A presented by HiveIQ. We're going to need questions from our listeners that you and I are going to answer. If a listener submits a question, we prefer a recorded question so that we can play your question as part of our opener. If they submit a question that we answer, somebody, and I'm assuming that's you, because you do all the heavy lifting in the podcast, we'll send them the hive tool.

Jeff: That's right. For our listeners, we'd love to hear your voice. We prefer recorded questions. You can use your phone, your computer, or send one through the website, the microphone that's on our website. The question should be anything of interest to beekeepers, whether for a brand new beekeeper or a seasoned beekeeper.

Becky: It shouldn't be, "I saw 6% levels of mites in my colony, should I treat them tomorrow?" Because we might not get to you right away. Make sure that if you have urgent management questions, you're sending those to your mentors, you're bringing them to your beekeeping clubs. Don't hold off on colony management that is needed and wait for one of our episodes to answer your question. If you think of a fun, maybe entertaining question to ask us, educational, we're looking forward to answering them.

Jeff: That's right. Each week we'll pick a question, answer it on the show, and then I'll send you the HiveIQ tool, and you can use it and hopefully not lose it. I use mine all the time. Even before I talked to HiveIQ and Victor and his team, they've created this beautiful tool. They have a great product set. Many of our listeners are using the HiveIQ hives. We welcome HiveIQ to the podcast for supporting our listeners and the beekeepers everywhere and making this fun giveaway possible.

Becky: Can I say, I've been using this tool all summer. I have a variety of hive tools that I use. This is the sturdiest hive tool that I own. This hive tool will never break or chip, or anything. It is a sturdy, sturdy, solid hive tool.

Jeff: It's one you will like. We need your questions and send them in. Let us know. If we use your question in the show, we will send you the tool. I'll have to reach out to you and get your mailing address or shipping address. This is a great promotion, so thank you, HiveIQ. Becky, we met today's guest at the North American Honey Bee Expo, didn't we?

Becky: I loved meeting Vikki because she had a great idea for a show, and yet when we started talking to her, we found out that maybe she was a great idea for a guest. I'm really looking forward to hearing what Vikki has to say about her Top-Bar hive management. Plus, she's just really engaged. She follows that beekeeping business thread we have going because she does a few different things as far as in her own beekeeping business. It'll be great to talk to her about her hive management and a little bit about what she does.

Jeff: I remember she came up to us at the show and she said, "You need to have a show or two on Top-Bar hives." We both said, "That would be interesting. Do you keep Top-Bar hives?" "Oh, yes."

Becky: Next question, "How many Top-Bar hives do you keep?" "Oh, yes." Do you remember the number, Jeff?

Jeff: No, I know it was--

Becky: I want to say it was 50. At that point, I was like, "Okay, well, we found you." [laughs]

Jeff: Are you interested in joining us on the show? I see Vikki is out in the green room now. Let's bring her in after these few words from our sponsors.

[music]

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Jeff: Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Sitting around this great, big, virtual Beekeeping Today Podcast table, stretching from one side of the United States to the other, we have Vikki Atkinson, sitting in Duncannon, PA. We'll have to ask Vikki where that is. Sitting in Saint Paul is Becky, and I'm out in Olympia. Hey, Vikki. Hey, Becky.

Vikki Atkinson: Hi. How are you doing today?

Becky: Vikki, it's great to see you. I'm doing very well. You haven't seen me yawn a couple of times, so we're good.

[laughter]

Vikki: Thank you for inviting me to join you. It's a real honor for me to be here and to be able to talk to you guys.

Jeff: You're going to see behind the scenes of the taping or recording of the Beekeeping Today Podcast.Promise you don't tell all of our secrets.

Becky: Did she sign the NDA, Jeff?

Jeff: I don't know. I've got to check with the attorneys on that one.

[laughter]

Jeff: Vikki, thanks so much. We're looking forward to talking to you about Top-Bar beekeeping, and we were discussing it before, and I was thinking we hadn't had anybody talk about Top-Bar beekeeping, but you reminded me that, yes, we did long ago when Kim was on the show. It was long enough ago that I've totally forgotten everything that guest had told us. I don't keep Top-Bar hives. You're going to hear some really fundamental questions from me, for sure. I'm excited about this show. I think it's a curiosity that many beekeepers have.

Becky: There's just so many advantages to Top-Bar beekeeping that it'll be really exciting to share those with-- I say that because I've heard Top-Bar beekeepers tell me that, not because I have experience. Vikki, no pressure, but it's going to be your job today to share all those advantages with us. We look forward to it. I think I got it wrong. This is what Jeff usually asks, but can you tell us a little bit about you and your operation? Because I think I underestimated the number of colonies you manage.

Vikki: Yes. I got started, a friend of mine took me to see her brother's commercial hives, and he sauntered out there and opened a hive up and handed me a drone, and, "Would you like to hold the bee?" It was just a very calming experience, just the peace that he carried himself with. I went home and went onto a blog and found Top-Bar beekeeping being talked about. To be honest, it was like a kid not knowing the difference between a standard and an automatic car. I didn't know there was a difference in hive styles. I saw this Top-Bar beekeeping blog, they were talking about it and mentioned Les Crowder.

I picked up Les Crowder's book, and I was just fascinated with the whole thing. I built my first two Top-Bars, and now I'm up to 100 hives.

Jeff: What makes up a Top-Bar hive?

Vikki: I find that most people are surprised that there's no frame involved. It's one piece of wood at the top, no sides, no bottom. It's a long hive that-- think of it as a countertop. It's a long, normally around 3 to 4 feet. I use 4-foot hives, one piece of wood that the bees will draw their comb, and they will hang it down from that one bar. Everything counts on that one bar. When you pick it up, you're going to handle it like a steering wheel. You want that center of gravity to be very careful so that you don't break the comb or cause any damage to it.

It's also raised to about the height that would be comfortable for you to stand and work, as opposed to lifting heavy boxes. You're only picking up maybe 7 pounds on a full, full honey bar at a time, tops.

Becky: You say steering wheel because there's no foundation on that comb. If you flip it the way those of us who are managing with foundation, if you flip it that way, the comb will just-

Jeff: Flop over.

Becky: -flop over, right?

Vikki: Yes, it will.

Becky: You learn quickly, right? [laughs]

Vikki: You learn very quickly. It's much easier to start working with a Top-Bar hive and go to Langstroth than it is to break your bad habits of Langstroth comb management and go to a Top-Bar. I have worked with Langstroth hives and held a frame, trying to look deep into those cells on a hot summer day in Kentucky, and seeing that comb start to work its way out of the frame, and panicking. It'll just happen a lot faster on a Top-Bar. It'll break pretty quick.

Jeff: I'm fascinated on the Top-Bar. I have a bunch of questions coming to my head, so I'm hesitating in my words because I'm worried about bee space, I'm worried about the interconnecting of comb in the box because if you use Langstroth often enough or long enough, you ultimately, at some point, experience a time when they start building comb in between frames, and you know what a mess that can be. That seems to me a Top-Bar hive would present all sorts of problems that way. Can they start building brace comb acrossways and mess up that carefully laid out design?

Vikki: I will say that you do need to be very careful when you get started with a Top-Bar hive. Normally, you will start just like with Langstroth, you have a nuc, you have five frames. If you've dumped a package into a nuc or into a 10-frame box, they're not going to utilize all that space right off the bat. If you put in what we have as a follower board, it is a piece of wood that fills the cavity and makes the hive seem a little smaller to the bees, and you can always give them more room, but they don't need all that room right off the bat.

That helps with preventing some cross comb, but that doesn't alleviate it. There will be a lot more management at the get-go, just getting in the hive. I have to confess most new beekeepers can't get out of a hive once they fall in love. It's not that hard to coax them into managing. If they're a hesitant beekeeper, it's definitely not the hive style that they should utilize. When I build my own equipment, I use 2 by boards, 2 by 4, 2 by 6, 2 by 8, and I rip them down. They're about three-quarters of an inch thick when I rip them. The spacing of a 2 by is just barely bigger by about a sixteenth of an inch bigger than the shoulders of the frame in a Langstroth hive. Between all of your frames, you usually have a little bit of room when you're managing. Therefore, this fits perfectly. It gives them just that right amount of room.

Becky: Vikki, I'm going to ask for some clarity because I've admitted, widely, I'm not building equipment, or if anything needs to be built, it's my husband, but you said rip down a board?

Vikki: Yes, it is a woodworking tool that I will take a 2 by board and run it across the table saw and cut bits, cut that 4 inches down into smaller three quarter inch sections. I hope that makes sense.

Becky: Is it jargon or a tool?

Vikki: It is the name of what they call that type of cut.

Becky: That cut. Okay. This is woodworking. We're into woodworking. Jeff just knew what you were talking about because he--

Jeff: Yes.

Becky: Okay. I'm representing those of us who do not have that knowledge.

[laughter]

Vikki: Quite all right. Quite all right.

Becky: [laughs] It's all good. Let's go. [laughs]

Jeff: The Top-Bars, you put them side by side, form the basis of the box, and there's no other spacing involved. Do you run a bead, a foundation, or wax? How do they know to start building the comb in the center of that 2 by that you put for the Top-Bar or the 3/4 by?

Vikki: That's a great question. When I first started, and it was recommended in Les Crowder's book, which he also includes plans, I was able to copy his plans. You don't need advanced woodworking skills. Just a circular saw, a screwdriver will get the job done pretty well for the body of the hive itself. He recommended having a comb guide, a little piece of wood that could be attached in multiple different ways, whether it's inserted into a groove that you cut into the wood, or it's another piece that you cut the wood just so that it makes a little point that hangs down, and the bees will build onto that.

I don't add any extra wax. The bees can do a much better job of attaching comb to wood than I could ever do. I allow them to do all that work themselves. This year I got very, very behind in my operation. Plus, I broke my shoulder this year. I was not able to keep up with my expanding yard as much as I wanted. I was putting pieces of just bars in the hive that didn't have any comb guide whatsoever, and the bees built beautifully, but the way to make sure that they behave themselves is to have them-- once they start drawing down two bars of foundation, you're going to separate them and put an empty one in between.

That gives them the sense of bee space to keep them from trying to build the comb in a perpendicular manner. It also is very easy to manipulate comb when it's fresh and that almost white color. You can bend it, or you can use your hive tool and remove the naughty parts as they start to bow the comb away from the straight direction. Then they will repair that very quickly and easily. It's very difficult, and there's other methods to correct comb that was not built correctly, but it's something called an emergency bar, and it's a little more complex, but it's something that I've used on numerous occasions in my yard.

Honeycomb just gets harvested. If it breaks and falls, just harvest that or feed that back to the bees. It's too hard to get that to reattach to the comb or the bar. I apologize, the bar.

Jeff: In a full Top-Bar hive, how many frames are there?

Vikki: Bars?

Becky: Do you call them frames? You don't call them frames because they're not complete, right? I think I've got this.

Jeff: You're talking to an old Langstroth person, so I'm going to have a hard time with terminology.

Becky: Well, actually, this is a really good reason for us to use the word combs, right? Because combs could be used in Langstroth or in Top-Bar?

Vikki: Yes.

Becky: I'm just saying that'll help us get all on the same page.

Vikki: That will work very well.

Becky: How many combs are they, Vikki?

Vikki: In my 4-foot hives, I have between 30 and 32. It depends on the thickness of the boards I'm working with. I also use another piece of woodenware that is, I call it a shim. It'll give you just a little bit of space if the bees are building extra-thick honeycomb. Just as in a 10-frame box, you can put 9 frames in that box. If they want, that way they'll build that comb wider. If the bees want to build wider, I can add these thin pieces of wood in between the bars, and that allows them to have extra space to go a little crazy and build some wider comb. I also keep one at the very front of the hive for a spacer.

If I wanted to pull the very first bar out, I have my entrances at the ends. Some people do them on the side or in the middle. Mine are on one end and then I also make sure I have a shim at the back. It just allows me to be able to move the very last bar or first bar without rolling any bees because you definitely don't want to roll your queen when you do an inspection.

Becky: Vikki, are your combs evenly sized from the very first one in the colony to the middle to the end, or do they get smaller as you get to the end?

Vikki: They get smaller, if I follow this question, only when they're brand new, building up. When the bees have spent more time constructing, then they will fill that cavity of the Top-Bar. I should also mention that I didn't describe the Top-Bar as having sides that are not squared off, but they're angled in so that it's half of a hexagon. Many people ask if the bees are going to attach comb to the sides because they don't have that frame to keep them within a confined area. Having your hive level is one of the first things you want to do from front to back. Bees hang in a festoon. That's like a plum line in carpentry, where down is, is how they're going to build that comb.

If you have one end tipped higher than the other, even if you're using foundationless Langstroth frames, they will build outside of that frame at the bottom compared to the top if you don't have your hive leveled. Then side to side does help them not to make so much attachments because all their hallways, all their opportunities to walk for bee space happens to be along the edges and the bottom, so they don't attach there very often. Level makes a big difference.

Jeff: If we're talking about sides and tops and bottoms on a standard, if there is a standard Top-Bar hive box, how wide is the top and how wide is the bottom?

Vikki: Unfortunately, Top-Bars are not standardized. It's one of the cons. We have talked about pros and cons. That's one of the cons, is they're not standardized. Many people go with Les Crowder's plans because they're easily accessible. He recommended having 20-inch bars. I have 21-inch bars, just gives me a little bit more room to pick up the bar. The inside cavity is, at the top, would probably be, I'm going to say 18 to 19 inches, and then the bottom would be about 9 inches wide on the ones that I build personally.

I have seen them deeper and narrower, but the center of gravity changes, so then you have to be a little bit more careful with the steering wheel method of handling them. I find if they get too deep, too long, that they're much easier to break that comb.

Jeff: I would think that would be a bad day.

Vikki: Yes. If the hive is too narrow, you're going to incite much more swarming in that hive because they don't have as much room to occupy.

Jeff: This is a great opportunity to take a quick break while we consider the dimensions of these colonies. We'll come back with many more questions for Vikki about Top-Bar hives. We'll be right back.

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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. Okay, Vikki, Jeff and I have our questions and there's so many of them, so this might be a two-hour special, but no, we're not going to do that. I'm curious about the cover, especially because there's the follower board potentially when you're starting your colony, but is there one big cover to the Top-Bar hive, and are there inner covers, or tell me everything you know.

Vikki: Great questions. Most people are familiar with Langstroths, and Langstroths have spacing between the frames. Once you've removed your outer cover and your inner cover, the bees are exposed to the outside. I can take what you would call my outer cover off, and my bees still don't know that I am there. It is like a ceiling.

Becky: Oh, because it's-- sorry. Keep talking. [laughs] I just got it, though. That was really fun.

Jeff: Yes, I see the expression on Becky's face, and it's like, "I get it." I'm still drawing pictures in my head.

Becky: That's so cool. Okay. We're ready. Keep going.

Vikki: If you had to think about your house, your house has a ceiling. Your ceiling is not weatherproof. Your ceiling protects you from whatever is above, but a ceiling is something that gives you a defined area. The bees are using-- the top of the bars are touching one another. There is no in between as there is in a Langstroth hive. That is kind of like their inner cover, except for you're only removing one small piece at a time instead of removing a whole top at once. A lot of people are afraid that bees don't overwinter at all in the colder climate. I use 2 inches of insulation. I slap that right directly on top of those bars. The bees can't reach it because there's a ceiling in the way.

Becky: Because they have a ceiling.

Vikki: Then we have 2 inches of insulation here in central Pennsylvania and then I have a rain cover. It can be corrugated metal, it could be a tarp, it could be rubber, it could be anything to keep the rain off the bees. You don't want the rain to get down onto those bars. Even though the bees put propolis between each of those bars in a very small amount, rain could still get in if the water got to them. I don't build a fancy shingled roof or something on hinges.

Once again, I think I owe that to Les Crowder's design and the pictures that were in his book. I'm always afraid the ones that are hinged could be like a sail on a good, strong, windy day, and then that hive flips over and we've got a mess. I'm just not prepared to deal with more headache than I have to. Just having a corrugated piece of metal on top and a brick on top of that or tie-down straps, get the job done to keep the bees from getting wet. They're perfectly happy in the inside, under their ceiling.

Jeff: I will validate your concern about the hinge top on my long Langstroth, which is not the same but laid out the same, it sounds like, but on a strong, windy day, that becomes a sail that just is either slamming down on your fingers or trying to topple over the box.

Vikki: Good to know. Thank you for validating that.

[laughter]

Becky: Vikki, can I back up? You said 2 inches of insulation, what material are you using?

Vikki: I use the rigid foam insulation that you can get at a hardware store. Usually the big-box stores have them, and I just cut it to cover the ceiling, the bars themselves, I don't insulate the sides because most of the heat loss is through the top. Can I share something exciting-

Becky: Please do.

Vikki: -that I find with my insulation? I can go out on a cold winter's day, take off my rain cover, take off that insulation real quick, and put my hand on top of that ceiling, on top of those bars. I can feel where that cluster is, and I can tell if that hive is alive or dead without ever seeing the bees and without ever disturbing them and put everything back together and they hardly notice that I was there, other than losing a little heat.

Becky: Oh, wow. That is really cool. I have a technical question though, because in order to get access to the first comb to look at, are you at the end and using a hive tool to pry it away? They seem like they're all close together and it's going to be harder to actually grab a bar.

Vikki: I use that shim that I mentioned, and it's about a quarter inch thick that I place at the front and the back. I will remove my shim first, and I do use my hive tool. I don't use the J hook, I use the pry bar style. I pull that first shim out, I'm able to slide that last bar out of the way, and then I'm able to lift it without fear of rolling any bees or the queen.

Becky: Perfect. I heard you say shim, but that was before I understood the ceiling, and so now that I get the ceiling, now I understand the shim. I'm now ready to actually purchase my first Top-Bar hive because there's no way I'm building it. I will say that this is a beautiful way to build a colony because you're much more in tuned to that natural comb building, which I've done in a foundation-less Langstroth hive, and it's just gorgeous to watch them build their own comb and understand those dynamics. Here, you're putting together the entire colony without those extra parameters, and it has to be a lot of fun.

Vikki: I do really enjoy it. I do love to watch festooning. It's just fascinating, even after 12 years of keeping Top-Bar hives, just to watch them hang and figure out what space they need to fill is just something you just don't get to see normally in Langstroth hives.

Jeff: Being the Langstroth hive guy, and we are taught that the colonies grow upwards through the season. How hard is it to get the colony to grow sideways in a Top-Bar hive?

Vikki: I have no trouble whatsoever with having the colonies grow sideways. The way they winter is different. They're going to travel around the edges of the hive. Instead of being in the middle, they can't go up and over a bar--

Becky: Because of the ceiling.

Vikki: Because it's a ceiling, it's in the way. There's wood in the way. They pick a left side or a right side, and they will travel around the edges of the comb from one comb to the next. That's how I have watched them for years traveling back through the hive. Normally I will find honey at the back of the hive. I will find the brood in the middle, and I will find their pollen and nectar stores, their bee bread, at the front. Once in a while they don't read the books, and they build any old way they want. That's traditionally with 50-plus hives, that's what I see over and over again, is honey at the back and brood in the middle.

Becky: She said the word honey. Are you going to ask about honey or are we not there yet? Okay. Go ahead.

Jeff: One last question here on the comb. Do they ever build it all the way down to the floor of the box, or do they leave a bee space there underneath everything so they're not on the floor of the box?

Vikki: They leave a bee space at the bottom. I only ever find them attaching at the bottom if there's a piece of debris that fell down, and they will attach to that odd piece of debris. As long as you're keeping the hive clean from fallen wax that you were probably the one that dropped in there.

Jeff: You've seen me beekeeping...

Vikki: [laughs] Then you don't really have to struggle with bees attaching to the bottom. That would be really difficult because that would rip the combs straight from the bar and cause all kinds of destruction.

Jeff: One last, last question. I promise, last, last question.

Vikki: Not really a last, last question. We still have many questions each I think.

Jeff: Many questions. Did you say the entrances at either end of the box, or are they on the side?

Vikki: I construct my hives with an entrance at the skinny end that I guess sometimes they call it the warm way, that the face of the comb faces an entrance so that if a bee flew in, it's not going to go between frames like it does in a Langstroth. It's going to go straight to the face of a comb and need to work under or around that first comb. Normally one end has an entrance, not both. I have had hives that I used both ends and put a divider board between so that I could keep two colonies, but once they outgrow the space, then you have to move a colony, and it's annoying. I'd really rather just keep one hive per colony.

Becky: It's like the Top-Bar version of a nuc, a little bit, a half colony.

Vikki: Half colony would be about a deep and a half.

Becky: Oh, that's pretty big then.

Jeff: You were going to ask a question about honey, Becky.

Becky: Now that you gave me that math, at least based on the plans that you've built, your full colony, is it three deep?

Vikki: It's pretty close to three deeps.

Becky: Then are you harvesting the honey and then putting the follower board in for winter, or tell me what you're doing. Just tell us about honey harvest. Why don't we start there?

Vikki: I can do that. When the bees have put up more honey than they need, then I can pull out 1 bar or 12 bars depending on what my desire is. If there's a special nectar flow, I can pull out just the bars for, say, black locust, or I can pull out everything, and I'd have to because it's a ceiling. It's not an inner cover. I have to make sure that there's bars in that place to take the place of the ones I'm removing, take them to the house. Normally people associate Top-Bars with a crush and strain method of harvesting. I take a potato masher, the kind that's a squiggle, not one with the square holes, and mash it in a bowl and put a filter or a strainer and pour the mashed honey and wax into that and let it drain off.

Takes a little bit of time. I have found a way to use an extractor with the Top-Bars that I use. I take two cooling racks that you would use to cool your cookies, and I'm able to sandwich that bar in between them and place that into an extractor. You're going to want to remove a little honey from one side, flip it, remove honey from the other side. Flip it one more time to finish removing so you don't blow out the comb and cause a lot of damage. You can actually put that into an extractor.

Jeff: Are you scratching the cappings?

Vikki: Great question. I forget that I need to cover that.

[laughter]

Jeff: It's not coming out. What's happening?

[laughter]

Vikki: Yes, I'd use a capping scratcher. I have never tried an uncapping knife just because it's a piece of equipment I've never needed to buy. I have tried the hairdryer method, but that only works if you have dry cappings, not if you have wet cappings.

Becky: I've never heard of the hairdryer method.

Jeff: No, me neither.

Becky: Then my hairdryer might get some use.

[laughter]

Becky: With the scratcher, are you lifting or are you actually scratching?

Vikki: I lift the cappings off.

Becky: You lift. Okay. That's what I do too. It's so pretty. It works out so well. Then are you reusing that comb?

Vikki: If you're able to put it in an extractor, yes. If you crush and strain, it is not usable to you again, or to the bees again. It's also a really great way that when you have older comb in your hive and you want to rotate your comb out because it does start to fill with chemicals from even just what the bees encounter in their daily flights, then you can put that older comb at the back, let the bees fill that with honey, and then you're able to crush and strain, if you wanted, and get that old comb out of the hive.

One of the things that I wanted to tell you that I forgot was that with the Top-Bar hive, I find that there's a lot less disruption to the colony, because when you take that shim out in the back and you lift a bar out, you're only disturbing the bees that are on that bar and the one directly next to it.

If you have a colony of 60,000 bees and you say there's 2000 bees per bar, we'll just spread that math, then you've got 4,000 bees in between each one as you go through the colony that is disturbed. Most of the bees are carrying on their business without being disrupted and they're not all flying into the air at once. I find that it's just a calmer way to work bees. I use a lot less smoke. I'm also able to avoid crushing bees because I'm only doing one small section at a time. If there's less dead bees, then there's less irritation and alarm pheromone going into the air, causing the bees to be chasing down that big monster that's peeking into their home.

Jeff: Stealing their honey. I have to ask now, I hate to say this, but we're--

Becky: You cannot cut us off, Jeff.

Jeff: No, we're getting close.

Becky: Come on.

Jeff: I want to ask another question. We'll have to have Vikki back many times. The big question, because we're dealing with it on a weekly basis, it seems, is Varroa. How is Varroa management handled in a Top-Bar hive? Is it any different?

Vikki: I'm going to say that it would be different for most beekeepers. You'd have to find a method that didn't need to sink, that you couldn't place something up on top and have it go down into a hive because that's just not the way they're built. It would have to be something that could be placed on the bottom of the hive, or it could be oxalic acid vaporization. They have the new Varroxsan strips that have come out. You could pinch them between bars in the ceiling, so they'd hang down between the slats in the ceiling. You'd be able to utilize some of the methods that are commonly used. It would just have to be something that didn't sink, like the fumes didn't need to sink through the hive.

Becky: I think you get into the problem where what we have available to mitigate mite populations, that's a chemical really, has been tested in a Langstroth colony. It really is risky to put some of those into a different style of a colony or a hive because you could have other implications. I think people have asked me the question about what to do, and I tell them I don't know. You use genetics, right? You're using a lot of genetics?

Vikki: I do. I started out with a small yard with six colonies here in Pennsylvania. Through the years I had bees that lived and died. I took some, I'll have to say, it was innocence on my part, Les Crowder, in his book, he does not talk about treating colonies. I got started when I lived in Kentucky. My husband was in the military and that's where I started keeping bees.

The club members, one of them just complained about how the acids were just so tough and he'd gotten some in his eye and he was just not very happy. There was a master beekeeper that I heard him talking about. He hadn't treated his bees in 20 years and he was a commercial beekeeper. I took those bits of information with me into my beekeeping, because like I said, I didn't know any better, I didn't know what the fallout could be.

I ended up not treating my hives and splitting on my survivor hives. I started buying VSH genetics when I heard about them many years ago. Then I was thrilled to hear about Harbo Assays tests, as well as the UBeeO product that has come out. I was able to then give my bees a grade, were they going to fail or were they going to pass? I found that many of my colonies ended up rating 4s on Harbo and between 70 and 90 in the UBeeO.

Jeff: Nothing over the scores. That's good, I take it.

Vikki: That's very good. With UBeeO, they say if you can get 65% uncapping with that testing method, that your bees have a very good chance of overwintering without chemical treatments. With Harbo, you want a 4. It will say how many reproductive mites there are in a cell when you do manual extracting of the pupa.

Becky: Do you have a lot of neighbors? Do you have a lot of mite pressure? Not people neighbors, but bee neighbors. Pennsylvania is such a popular location for beekeeping. Do you have a lot of beekeeper neighbors?

Vikki: I have a couple little backyard beekeepers near me. I do have a number of feral colonies that have been found. I do have mite pressure because I do have some of those backyard beekeepers aren't treating and buying packages each and every year. I am getting mite pressure from non-hygienic bees that come into the area.

Becky: Are you requeening if you are finding a low score?

Vikki: Yes.

Becky: So you're ruthless. No, I'm kidding.

[laughter]

Becky: I'm teasing, I'm teasing. No, you're a great beekeeper.

Vikki: I'm just excited about the opportunity to have bees that can do what they were designed to do. They have these characteristics for a reason. To be able to promote that and to offer beekeepers in my area, "Hey, I will give you a queen. I want you to have better opportunities, overwintering your bees using less chemicals." Also that then brings more positive drones into the area for my virgin queens to mate with, by supplying local beekeepers with good genetics.

Jeff: Is a Top-Bar hive a good hive to start beekeeping with, if you've never kept bees before?

Vikki: I started that way. Like I said, I didn't know any different, but I don't believe that Top-Bar beekeeping is the right choice for every person. If a beekeeper is not willing to spend time frequently at the very beginning in their hives to make sure the bees are not going to cross-comb the combs, then they're going to end up with quite the headache when they do go to inspect their hive and find that comb is going the wrong way.

When they lift that bar, comb is going to fall to the ground or to the floor of the hive. The queen could get crushed. You're going to have honey everywhere, bees everywhere. For a brand new beekeeper to have that kind of carnage is very upsetting. Who's going to help you? The Top-Bar beekeepers are the second most popular. It's the second most popular hive style, but mentors are very hard to find.

If you're not able to find a mentor, then you're going to have to be strong to be able to try to do this, to reach out to people online and hope you get good information, but that doesn't always happen. I really think that having a real desire to be in the hive frequently is really key to get started in a Top-Bar beehive.

Jeff: I hate to be the Grinch in this party.

Becky: Which I'm totally blaming you, Jeff.

[laughter]

Jeff: We are coming up on the end of the episode. Vikki, this has really been interesting and we've only barely scratched the surface. May we ask you to come back and we'll take the next step. Maybe we can create a series on Top-Bar beekeeping. We've been doing these different series for Varroa treatments and habitat and our other series. We could do a series with Vikki on Top-Bar beekeeping. That would be fun.

Vikki: I would be more than happy to talk about Top-Bars anytime you like.

Becky: Thanks so much, Vikki. That is excellent news.

Jeff: Well, Becky, are you out there building your own Top-Bar hive now?

Becky: Jeff, remember I said I'm going to have to buy a Top-Bar hive. Actually, the University of Minnesota has one in the yard that's not being used. I cannot tell you how often we've talked about populating that Top-Bar hive so that it's an example, but putting bees in it without knowing what's going on isn't a great start. Now I feel like I have a little bit of information. I'll talk to Katie Lee. Maybe next year is the year.

Jeff: Maybe, and you definitely have a resource and a person you can call to ask about. I meant to mention to Vikki and call out to our listeners that this is our 350th episode. It's really fun to talk about a new way of keeping bees-- it's not a new way, Top-Bar has been around a long time. Top-Bar hive in the 350th episode, that's fun.

Becky: Even if you have no interest in keeping Top-Bar hives, learning about a Top-Bar hive really informs your own beekeeping because you're learning about how the bees build their nest, and you get a little bit more insight about what they're doing and also about what our management, the people who are doing Langstroth management, what that means to a colony. Just hearing how they work their way through the Top-Bar through the winter, that's fascinating. It's just really interesting.

Jeff: Really build out understanding of bee biology beyond the Langstroth. It's fun. Well, that about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like.

You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews tab along the top of any webpage. We want to thank Betterbee and our regular longtime sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books, for their generous support. Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the BeekeepingToday Podcast listener, for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions and comments on our website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:52:35] [END OF AUDIO]