Top Bar Hive Beekeeping With Corwin Bell & Kelly Simmons

This 1-hour video was shot at the Organic Beekeeping Conference in February 08. In it, the speakers discuss their philosophy of sustainable beekeeping and provide tips for beekeeping using top bar hives.


Many other videos from the Organic Beekeeping Conference are available online through the good graces of Golden Rule Apiary's "Bee Unto Others" website.

2008 Organic Beekeeping Conference, Past & Future

In February, the Organic Beekeepers group hosted its first conference. Videos, audio recordings, and photos from the gathering are available here.

I haven't had time to explore all this material yet, but it looks like some good info on bee genetics, queen rearing, and "no-treatment" beekeeping can be found here. Join the Organic Beekeepers group to stay apprised of future conferences and events, and to find answers to your burning questions about how to raise "additive-free" bees.

And note the following: "The next two conferences are already in the works. In October, there will be a meeting in Nebraska (organized by Michael Bush), dates, speakers, and details TBD, and again in Oracle, AZ February 27-March 1, 2009 (Friday through Sunday). The cost for the Oracle conference will be the same as for this year ($80 including food and lodging for all 3 days). Updated information on these events will be available on the Organic Beekeeping discussion group, on many of the websites listed below, as well as in Bee Culture and The American Bee Journal."

On Fear and Friendship

Beekeeping is an endless series of mysteries, at least for the beginner. The bees do this, the bees do that, the bees defy the books and articles about them. The bees are charismatic, creative, outspoken, enigmatic. They are predictable except when they aren’t. They are unpredictable within the context of a complex, ancient set of social and behavioral rules. They are ignoring you completely as they go about their business or watching you with an intensity you feel in the bones.

As you work the hive, the bees look at you with their eyes and you look at them with yours.

That’s the gist of what organic beekeeping guru Dee Lusby wrote in response to one of my many ignorant questions on the Organic Beekeeping listserv earlier this summer. I was commenting about how nervous it made me to have thousands of “agitated” bees “staring” up at me through the spaces between the top bars while I worked the hive. In response, Dee wrote something that changed my whole attitude toward spending time with the bees.

“Learn to enjoy the sweet little bees. You will do fine! They look at you with eyes and you look at them….Tak[e] frames up slow….[so] you can see their daily normal movements. By observing this daily normal movement and any deviations is how we learn to follow the bees and their needs to see if something is wrong. It’s also how we learn to pet our bees with fingers and play with them and eye them, and talk to them and enjoy!!!”

I went into beekeeping because of an affinity for honeybees, a love of insects and flowers, a desire to travel more deeply into the miracles of pollination and seasons and nectar flow and animal mind. And I looked forward to each opportunity to explore the hives for “inspections” (a clinical word that in the future I will replace with “visits”—as a bee visits a flower, I visit the hive.)

But also there was fear, and a not-knowing of the bees—an inability to interpret the many sights, sounds, and even smells of the hive. A difficulty realizing that the bees might simply be staring up at me out of interest, curiosity, or alertness rather than out of agitation or alarm. Of course, a welcoming bee-stance is something I have to earn through gentle, methodical, kind-hearted, well-informed beekeeping.

Now, when I open the hive and ever so slowly pry apart the top bars so I can pay my visit to the bees, I smile at all the little faces gazing up at me with an intelligence so intimate and remote it scrambles my brain. I look at them with my eyes; they look at me with their eyes. And then I speak to them, the sweet little bees. And learn to listen as they speak back.

Hot, Extroverted Honeybees!

The Hive Orange bees have been hanging out in increasing numbers outside the hive entrance--in a behavior known as bearding. Two days ago, there were a couple dozen bearding bees. But today...


The helpful folks on my organic beekeeping listserv have put my mind at ease. They don't see a major problem with just a few bees hanging out like this, given the humid weather we've been having. (In beekland, apparently, a couple hundred qualifies as "just a few.") Still, they recommend improving the ventilation inside this hive, so tomorrow I'll remove the piece of duct tape that covers an additional ventilation/entrance hole. I may also do some minor manipulations inside the hive to create a bit more breathing space in there.

I think at some point, someone on the organic beek list likened this behavior to sitting out on the front porch to cool off on a hot summer night--an image that gives this picture a more comforting, down-home feel.

By the way, the organic beekeepers listserv has been a life-saver throughout this entire adventure. If you're thinking about raising bees, check it out. It's an extremely informative discussion group that (thankfully) goes against the grain of most "modern" beekeeping approaches, which douse bees in antibiotics and other treatments that don't exactly support the genetic development of strong, healthy, disease-resistant bees.