All-Natural Bees

Keeping bees is a little side-business I run.  I've experimented with different hive designs over the years but eventually settled on the Kenyan Top Bar Hive as my preferred method of raising bees.  There are pros and cons to each design.  But what I like most about the Top Bar Hive is that it is about as simple as it comes.  The bees make their own comb and manage the space however they most see fit.  While I can get bees to live just fine on plastic foundation, it always seems that they prefer to live in a top bar hive and do the best there.  Plus, I can make my own boxes and move them all around as needed.  While I would undoubtedly save time working with a Langstroth, I enjoy the top bar design the most.

Generally, I don't feed the bees any sugar or corn syrup.  Hungry bees should eat their honey stores.  So I tend to leave most of the honey for them.  I only harvest what the bees don't need for winter or the summer dearth.  I usually only harvest twice a year -- once in the fall and again in the early spring.

Rather than using chemical treatments, I prefer to aggressively re-queen weak or older colonies.  The inside of a hive is more than just bees and comb -- it is an entire ecosystem.  Chemical treatments can disrupt this ecosystem in ways we cannot predict.  While I'll grant that chemical treatments can be necessary in some cases and might be essential for large-scale operations, I prefer to keep both the hive sizes small and my apiaries small.

All of my bees have originally come from feral swarms in and around Fresno, CA or from divides made from those colonies.  Colonies that survive to the following spring are split to replace losses or used to re-queen weaker colonies that are collected from swarms.