Kenya Top Bar Beehive

The kenyan was designed to be low tech low cost and simple to build using available materials.

Kenya top bar beehive. The kenyan top bar hive. Since i found the kenyan top bar hive i have been experimenting with various designs and dimensions. Beekeeping naturally promotes the kenyan top bar hive as one of the most effective natural bee hives for backyard and small scale beekeepers bee carers. A smoker to confuse the bees is rarely used and delicious raw honey can be taken out one bar at a time as needed.

These are the long sides. Cut list for a kenya top bar hive elevated hive stand. Peace corps volunteers demonstrate the construction of kenya saltpond topbar hives in ghana west africa. Design intent 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.

The hive commonly referred to as the kenyan top bar hive was developed by dr. These are the leg posts of the stand. The object of a top bar hive tbh is to be easy and cheap to construct easy to work and having natural sized cells. Cut a saw.

Kenya top bar hive. Rabbet 5 1 2 x 3 4 deep along one end of each post this. Top bar hives are low tech old style configurations of hives. You can use whatever timber tthat is cheap and available locally.

Gordon townsend from the university of guelph in canada sponsored by the canadian international development agency cida under an initial four year overseas project which began in kenya in 1971. Fitting the queen. Constructing a kenya top bar hive plywood preparation. Bevel the top long edge so that the outside height measurement of the board is 9.

The kenyan top bar hive has a box with sloped sides whereas the tanzanian top bar hive has a rectangular box. A combination of les crowder s hive dimensions and phil chandler s management techniques. A kenya style sloped sides is so that the combs are more naturally strong and less likely to break and collapse when they are full of honey. Kenyan top bar hive ktbh.

Pine cyprus grevillia robusta. This hive worked very well with no comb collapses. Through trial and error i found the best hive for australian conditions for my needs is a hybridisation of two kenyan top bar designs. Entering the beehive from one side means that only a small number of bees are disturbed at a time rather than thousands of angry bees reacting to just having their roof ripped off.

Bee management is possible with this hive making it easier to harvest and manipulate colonies for more honey production compared to traditional hives. Before you glue and nail the pieces of plywood together sand down the edges to ensure a smooth. Otherwise known as a ktbh or htbh horizontal.