As I said before, I’ve decided to build my own Top Bar Hives. I also decided to base my design on a traditional Langstroth hive only elongated to be double in width to the traditional. I did this for two reasons. One, I wanted to start off with nucs for my first bees and all nucs come on traditional frames so I need to use traditional inside dimensions. Two, if this whole TBH idea doesn’t work out, I can still use this hive with regular equipment as two normal hives will sit side by side on top of this one and it fits normal frames.
I did the design work in Google Sketchup. Download the file here.
As you can see, I also put legs on it for easy access without bending over and added a nice pitched roof. The roof will be made of corrugated plastic yard sign material that I have at work.
In doing research on TBHs, I came across this free eBook: How to Build a Top Bar Hive. I also bought The Barefoot Beekeeper from the same author which has valuable info on low-stress, chemical-free, sustainable, beekeeping. They also run a nice forum at http://www.biobees.com/
I happen to know the woodworking instructor at the university and he is going to allow me to use the equipment to cutout and assemble these hive there. I have most of the tools needed at home but the space and industrial grade equipment in the university wood shop will make this project go much smoother.