Yes! Top Bar Hives by J. R. Slade

Yes! Top Bar Hives by J. R. SladeThe author suggests that Top Bar hives offer a gentler way of practicing the craft. We have a duty to our bees and as beekeepers we must be in the forefront of change for nature, not mere puppets in some commercial enterprise. This volume gives advice on managing colonies in top bar hives and provides notes and illustrations for the construction of a top bar hive. INTRODUCTION: Top bar hives have had a bad press and many an established beekeeper has

The author suggests that Top Bar hives offer a gentler way of practicing the craft. “We have a duty to our bees and as beekeepers we must be in the forefront of change for nature, not mere puppets in some commercial enterprise”.

This volume gives advice on managing colonies in top bar hives and provides notes and illustrations for the construction of a top bar hive.

INTRODUCTION: Top bar hives have had a bad press and many an established beekeeper has seized upon that bad press to damn them as not worth the effort. In today's beekeeping world there is a drive to achieve a return for the beekeeper. Little or no thought is given to such things as the demise of feral bees, density of bee colonies in unitary areas, the nature of the food source etc. Most beekeepers' thoughts are on getting more productive bees, varroa free bees, bees that don't sting etc. 
We are progressively drawn to medication as a cure of all ills. We are told that there is a better bee strain and all we have to do is muck about with our queens. 

We are continually having our attention drawn to "Emperors new clothes". Like the fairy tale they do not exist. Man, for all his skills, has never bettered nature when attempting to improve any live stock. Yes, we have cows that produce more milk than they did in the past but they are kept going like so many other domesticated animals with specialised housing, drugs etc.  How many of these animals would survive as they are, without the intensive input of modern farming? We do not seem to understand that bees are not domesticated, they have to exist in the harsh reality of nature. We take for granted that honey has wonderful healing properties, properties that bees primarily derive for themselves from plants that they have a symbiotic relationship with. Those same plants may not be appreciated by us, therefore we destroy them. Conversely other plants that are to our liking, showy, spectacular flowers from overseas that offer nothing to our bees what-so-ever, are abundant in our midst. There are many beekeepers that say a better bee is breed-able. What abject nonsense. If we want to have bees that can exist and thrive in a changing world, the only hope is that we are sensible enough to stand back and let the bees do it for themselves. We import bees from warm climates and cross them with other bees from unknown places and think that is good. 

We must take the opportunity that still exists, take a back seat and let bees swarm, produce drones without restriction and let them cross breed as they see fit. Let us put bees back in to the wild by making provision for feral colonies, which face the rigours of nature and offer a background of naturalised wild, native bees that will re-vitalise our stocks by reducing the contamination of imported strains.  Top Bar Hives offer a hope in beekeeping that does not exist in conventional bee keeping, where the emphasis is on the bee keeper's reward, rather than on the bees.  TBHs offer that freedom to bees (if un-interfered with) to create the comb they want, generate drones in the numbers that they see fit, to ensure that bee generation upon bee generation has the antecedence that they want and need to cope with the rigours of change.  Bees must be our priority not honey. The salvation of bees lies in regional mongrel-ism not in hybridisation.  The urban fox will always be there when the inbred pooch has gone. 

We are frightened by the prospect of the Asian hornet getting here! Perhaps the problem with the Asian hornet, is that we didn't try to improve it. It copes in a way our bees do not.  We fail to understand that only nature mends, that only nature adjusts, that only nature gives answers, and that it will be nature that gives salvation where we cannot.