Hive Transfers: 8 July 2015

Not too long ago, we were able to assist an up-and-coming beekeeper with a hive transfer. She had a top bar hive and wanted to transfer her colony into a deep middle bar hive. The reason for this is because she didn't have the time to maintain the top bar hive, which can be fairly intense when it comes to maintenance, simply because you have to make sure that the comb doesn't get stuck to the bottom of the hive.

Here is the video of the transfer:

As you can see, because she didn't have the time to maintain the top bar hive, it took several hours to transfer the colony to the deep middle bar hive because Stan Moulton had to cut out the comb individually. The flaws of the top bar hive are fairly obvious as you watch. The maintenance is difficult and harvesting honey is destructive to the comb. However, with a deep middle bar hive, harvesting honey is not destructive and there is no fear of the bees building comb that adheres to the wall and bottom of the boxes. Though there is maintenance involved with the middle bar hive, it is clearly much less than it is for a top bar hive.

You can purchase middle bar frames here and a deep middle bar box here.