Examine, Review, Advise

Please review our 3D model and photographs and leave any comments, suggestions or recommendations about the hive design below. Read the Colorado Top Bar documentation here.

Colorado Top Bar v6.1 by osbeehives on Sketchfab

Summary of Design Change Suggestions

• Double follower boards - @nlk3233
• Place entrance above floor - @BarefootBee
• Base Plate (floor) - add ventilation/drainage holes - @BarefootBee
• Insulation above topbars - @BarefootBee
• Double entrances - front and back of hive - @nlk3233
• Base Plate (floor) - hinged screen floor - @nlk3233
• Double floor plates - screen and solid - @AaronM

After reviewing Phil Chandler's top bar hive design, I really believe the use of double follower boards is a must.
This allows you to house 1 large hive or two smaller hives within the same box.
It also is a great management item for swarm suppression/management. It allows the brood nest to become as large or as small as the beekeeper needs, so in essence the hive is modular.
I will use them in my own top bar hives.

I agree that tandem followers with a side entrance have many advantages.

Having bees walk in and out at floor level, through a pile of debris, is not a good plan IMO.

Also, solid floors will collect moisture and inevitably rot away.

Insulation above the bars, all year round, regardless of the climate, is important to the correct functioning of these hives.

I like entrances on both sides, ones that can be closed at will or need.
I like a hinged, screened floor that can be opened at will as well. But that adds another layer of complexity too.

Double Floor Mockup

@jonathan what do you think of this?

Hi Phil (@BarefootBee)! Great to see you in the forum.

To clarify - are you and @nlk3233 suggesting we split the hive interior in half with a double follower board, and put in another entrance? My question would be - will this not cause more swarms? The hive is relatively small already.

What are the advantages of doing it this way? Could you share a resource?

Thanks for your input!

@trizcs I'm sorry if I made it confusing, I'll try to clarify.

I'm suggesting the use of a double follower board, for the use of manipulation. It brings to light a different style of management.
Phil suggests to not keep bees against the entrance or exit side of the hive. He uses double follower boards to sandwich the hive in the center, and he can move the followers at will to expand or suppress the hive size. He will move the follower and replace with an empty top bar.
This style of management is very nice for the bees as you don't need to bother and disturb the bees, all thats needed is move the follower and observe the brood nest or honey storage area.
The double follower could then allow for swarm suppression by dividing the brood nest(mimicking a swarm state in the hive) and moving part of the hive to the other side of the top bar, allowing the queen to hatch, and the beekeeper could then recombine the hive, or make a split from it. All without using extra equipment or additional hives.
Phil is much smarter than I will ever be, so maybe he could elaborate, or correct anything I may have not stated correctly.

Oh ok - thanks for the explanation - I think understand now! Is there a good online resource either of you have made or seen on this? Being a visually minded person, it would be great to see some images.

I actually heard it on a Podcast Phil was on, thats where I got my info, and I like you am visual, so I had to listen a couple of times to really get it.

@BarefootBee
What is typically used to insulate the top of the top bars? Blankets? Plastic?

Why is this significant?

You can use any type of insulation - whatever you have to hand - from sheep's wool to sawdust, or offcuts of Kingspan/Celotex roof insulation.

Follower Boards
I cannot lay claim to being the first person to use a follower board in a top bar hive, but I think I was probably the first to use two in tandem, as described in The Barefoot Beekeeper. Whether or not I am correct in this claim, I have found the use of two (and sometimes more) followers adds greatly to the functionality of the TBH and turns it into what I believe is the most flexible and versatile hive currently in use.
Using my original management plan, followers are placed either side of an introduced swarm or nucleus, with entrance holes placed centrally, so the colony is initially held within roughly the middle third of the hive body: 10 x 38mm bars contain a volume of approximately 30 litres. I have found that this greatly increases the likelihood of these combs being built to follow the guides, reducing cross-combing at this stage almost to zero.
During the first season, as comb building progresses, only one follower is moved, two or three bars ahead of where the bees are building, so as to allow them to expand their colony unhindered. As soon as a flow starts, extra bars may be inserted at the other end, to allow expansion of the brood nest and alleviate any tendency to become honey-bound. This is much more difficult to achieve with only a single follower.
Another big advantage of using movable followers in tandem is that they enable the beekeeper to do a quick inspection of both ends of the colony at any time, with virtually no disturbance to the bees. You can check both stores and brood nest in a matter of seconds, without moving a single top bar, simply by sliding a follower away. Most times I do this, the bees barely notice. If I need to look a little deeper into the brood nest - for example, if I need to check for eggs or brood - then I can do so by moving only one or two top bars.
Tandem followers add a number of other useful features to the hive, including:

Using multiple followers, several 'mating nucs' can be created in a single hive body with entrances on alternate sides, reducing the need for separate nuc boxes
They improve the thermal efficiency of the hive by reducing bees' exposure to cold surfaces.
They allow artificial swarming and other splits to be carried out within a single hive body
They enable the beekeeper to manage the space available to swarms and developing colonies
With the addition of access holes, they allow for the use of in-hive feeders, enabling liquids or semi-solids (fondant or crystallized honey) to be fed to bees with no risk of setting off robbing or attracting the attention of wasps or ants
They require entrances to be placed on the side rather than on the end of the hive, enabling bees to enter between combs and improving 'traffic flow' during nectar flows

The single most important advantage of using tandem followers is that you can quickly check both ends of the colony without releasing significant heat or disturbing the bees. If there was no other reason to use them, this alone would make them invaluable to the natural beekeeper, who is aware of the importance of retaining the hive atmosphere and allowing the bees to go about their business with minimal interference. Combined with an observation window, they enable the beekeeper to gather vital information about the state of the colony, which is possible in no other type of hive.
There are times when you will need to look further into the hive, such as:

When the bee inspector calls, he/she will want to look at brood, as that is where brood diseases (if any) will be found
When you want to check to see if a queen is present and laying
When making splits, if you choose to
When checking to see if they are planning to swarm
When checking for laying workers and other symptoms of terminal decline

I see follower boards as fundamental to the effective management of the TBH.

I have always greatly respected @BarefootBee TBH hive management techniques and have often followed them closely. I do think the OSBH design is too short for two follower boards though...

Hi guys, we have some new manufacturing capabilities that will allow us to lengthen the CTB if needed. More on that in the near future.

I've followed an earlier version of the plan, and have constructed a hive in Australia. (I'll share a blog post and video when I get a chance.)

The main feedback that I have is that while beautifully created, it's too small for our local conditions.

Beekeeping conditions in Australia are extraordinarily good: winters are very mild (no snow), many native plants flower throughout the colder seasons, and spring & summer is very long.

(To give an example: in my warre hives, in Summer, I'm harvesting a full box of honey every 2-3 weeks at the moment.)

The swarm that I caught filled up the kenyan hive within a month, and then re-swarmed. I think it's going to swarm quite a few more times yet!

Can I therefore suggest perhaps a 2-sheet hive that's longer, with much greater interior volume?

Thanks, and keep up the great work

Hi @jamesrau - we're designing a more affordable mass market hive that will have a larger interior volume. Look for that early next year (2015) - thanks for the great feedback - we'd love to see your hive.

As promised, here is a video of my hive being created, and then populated with bees:

Creating an open-source beehive

Thanks again for all the hard work on the designs! Looking forward to seeing even more innovation in 2015.

PS. one other practical suggestion:

The version of the Colorado hive I downloaded (5.4) was designed for a 2440mm x 1220mm sheet of ply.

In Australia, there is a mix of board sizes, between 2440x1220 and 2400x1200.

Frustratingly, the higher-quality ply (such as hoop pine) tends to be the smaller size. This caused us a lot of hassle, having to re-layout the pieces, and then divide them across a couple of sheets.

Can I make the suggestion of switching the designs to 2400x1200? That would guarantee they fit on pretty much any sheet of ply, still with only a small amount of waste.

Hey James!

Thanks for sharing this - I've just posted you blog to our Facebook.

Thats irritating about the design files - there do seem to be small difference in materials around the world. Do you have CAD skills? We like to encourage people to change the designs to fit their local needs so everyone can benefit.

Fantastic work on the blog entry, and best of luck with your new hive!

Great job with the blog posting, that is awesome. I totally agree about the space in Australia, especially when there is a big nectar flow on from Eucalypts. I had to use 4 boxes on our Warre hive at our office in Canberrra to keep up with their progress over Christmas. We will definitely need a much larger capacity hive to conditions down under, or we will be forever splitting.