Che Guebee Apiary: Holma Forest Garden building their first Top Bar Hive

Monday, October 7, 2013

Holma Forest Garden building their first Top Bar Hive

Holma Forest Garden near the city of Höör (Sweden) had an open family day yesterday with many activities including: covering their permanent beds with straw, building a stone wall for insects and solitary bees, pressing Apples, harvesting forest garden fruits and seeds and building a Kenya style Top Bar Hive.

They invited me to do the top bar hive workshop and I was delighted to do it. I was truly surprised how many people showed interested in top bar beekeeping, such a joy for me indeed :)

More than 60 people showed up :)

lots of kids too learning about permaculture and natural top bar beekeeping

food was organised ...

large group of visitors joined in building this top bar hive

finished Kenya Top Bar Hive

they will use an old aluminium aquarium stand for hive legs.

This was a very rewording day. We even had visitors who came down to Skåne from another province called Småland just to be involved in this top bar hive workshop.
We also had a couple of conventional beekeepers who would like to start top bar beekeeping.

I want to thank everyone who was involved and who is considering to start natural beekeeping in such hives where Honeybees needs are more important than honey production.

Another top bar hive in Sweden is about to start Buzzing :))

2 comments:

UnknownDecember 17, 2013 at 12:57 AM
With the increasing interest in log homes, it shows that a growing number of people would like their dream home to be a Garden Log Cabins .
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Luck CitySeptember 9, 2018 at 11:10 PM
Admiring the time and effort you put into your blog and detailed information you offer!.. Land Management
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What is Natural Beekeeping?

"Natural Beekeeping" is a concept, an idea which springs from a human mind and as such will differ from one person to another, from one culture to another, depending on our limited and conditioned perception about what it IS being a Honeybee. Since natural beekeeping is an idea and not the actuality it is not to be taken rigidly. Instead it is to be directly inspired by the Actuality. But let's avoid going too philosophical about it and let me simply describe how I see "natural beekeeping" benefiting honeybees (these are only guidelines not a dogma);

- free wax comb construction resulting in clean wax and various cell size

- bees overwinter on their own honey stores (feeding sugar syrup ONLY if absolutely necessary)

- lots of peace (low interference from the beekeepers part)

- treatment free (The only way to have a sustainable system of beekeeping is to stop treating, instead making splits from survivor colonies seems the most natural way to me)

- bees are allowed to raise as many Drones as needed (no drone culling)

- natural Queen selection resulting in the strongest Queen (no queen cell culling and only working with local Queens or my own)

- pesticide free bee zone and supporting organic farming (this is a global issue and must be dealt with locally first through environmental organisations and by buying and growing organic food/clothing, etc ...)

- expanding my apiary every year by making splits using Queen Cells from my own strong survivor colonies or catching local swarms. This is the best way to counteract winter losses.

- planting for the bees flowering trees, bushes and plants covering all seasons. Biodiversity is the best healer for the bees and all other creatures.

Natural Beekeeping

Monday, October 7, 2013

Holma Forest Garden building their first Top Bar Hive

2 comments:

Catching my very first Prime Swarm