Episode 46 of the podcast is now live! This week, I’m sharing my thoughts and experiences on the Gold Star Honeybees top bar hive (complete kit); the quality of the materials, ease of putting it together, and how it is working out. I’m also hosting a giveaway for the book ‘The Thinking Beekeeper - Natural Beekeeping in Top Bar Hives’ by the owner of Gold Star Honeybees, Christy Hemenway. Details at the end of the episode and this blog post! Listen over on Podbean, or wherever you get your podcasts!
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Homestead Updates
On May 23rd, we celebrated Luna’s third gotcha day! I cannot believe we have been blessed with this little muffin for 3 years already! It often feels like just yesterday that I drove to collect her from the breeder’s. I took her on a ‘two week trial’ but I knew the minute I saw her sweet face that it was a done deal. Luna came to us because she killed a cat in her breeder’s house, even though she had been raised since birth with cats. It could have been a hormonal thing as she had puppies at the time. Either way, her breeder knew it wasn’t fair to her elderly cats to keep a dog with that history. Our first greyhound was a cat killer and, since we’re allergic to cats, we don’t mind adopting these kind of pups. Luna was meant to be a show dog but never really took to that life so her breeder didn’t intend to produce more than the one litter from her. When I came to get her, she was recently spayed and ready for a new home. I had the pleasure of meeting one of her daughter’s, Treasure, at the time, who is basically Luna’s mini-me. So cute! From the minute Luna walked into our home, she immediately settled in. All my years of fostering and owning sighthounds and I have never had a dog adjust so fast. She knew what she wanted and she had it! No doubts for this girl. Since then, she’s caused her fair share of trouble (including escaping the yard on her first day here!) and she’s still prone to a sneaky piddle in the house during bad weather but it’s hard to hold it against her when I consider all the naps we’ve shared, all the cuddles, and all the joyful antics. She’s a happy, loving little dog who I am so proud to know. We’re still working on her anxiety out of the house but she’s made great strides there! I hope to celebrate many more years with my lovebug.
As I mentioned last episode, I had taken old lady Agatha off her pain medication to see how she would do. I was pleased to see that she was eating, drinking, and exploring happily as usual. However, when I picked her up for a quick body check, I found her to be a little thinner than usual. This could be because of the return of warmer weather (the chickens don’t eat quite as much during the warm months as they do during winter) but I have restarted her on the low dose of pain meds to see if her weight increases. Birds, like reptiles, are very good at hiding their pain so it’s possible that she is feeling sore off the meds. We shall see! I am all about keeping this venerable old lady as comfortable and happy as possible.
I recently shared over on Instagram some pics of the bruises I have from my rooster’s attacks, and I was surprised by how many people think I should get rid of him for his behaviour. It definitely made me sit back and reassess the situation. As it stands, right now, he is staying. I fully agree that there are plenty of good, friendly roosters out there and that keeping one so aggressive isn’t the best idea. If I was more pragmatic, I’d eat the little turd. That said, I am overall sympathetic since he had such a rough start in life and seems to have grown up wild. He’s very good with the hens and is a handsome addition to the homestead. I’ve been looking into purchasing a new coop to use as a quarantine and might raise chicks next Spring. My flock is older and just aren’t producing as many eggs as before, and it would be nice to get some younger girls in. If I do that, I’ll grab a male as well to hand raise in the hopes of him growing up to be a more friendly rooster for the flock. Of course, once their hormones hit, any rooster can turn into a huge jerk but hand raising a breed known to be overall gentle could help me end up with a rooster who doesn’t go after me all the time.
Once the cold weather cleared, our night temps started to rise and it was finally time for me to hit the local plant nursery and grab some veggie plants! I picked up 2 different types of bell peppers, 4 tomato varieties, some rosemary, thyme, basil, and chamomile. My next door neighbour also offered me 4 tomato starts they had left over, which I gladly accepted. This year, I’ve been careful to space the tomatoes far apart as I crowded them last Spring and didn’t get a good harvest. I made the same mistake with the corn too so I doubled the size of that bed and was careful to seed them far apart.
This year, I set myself the goal of clearing the side bed that I have neglected. It’s been overgrown with weeds since we bought the house almost 4 years ago, and I keep starting the process of clearing it before getting distracted by something else. So far, I’ve cleared the top part of the circular bed and put down wildflower seeds, as well as the rosemary and chamomile plant. I’ve also added some lavender. I’m hoping all three of these plants will thrive and spread, creating a wildflower and fragrant herb garden. I also mowed down the grass behind this bed and covered it with composed mulch before planting sunflower and some corn. This area gets so much sunshine that I think I could have great success growing these two sun-loving plants, and it’s conveniently up against the fence, which I can use as support.
To keep me motivated on all that hard work of weeding, I’ve decided to turn the lower ring of that bed into a pumpkin patch! It would be a good use of the space and would also look lovely. I find squash blooms beautiful and then you get the added bonus of the actual pumpkins! I have a lot of weeding ahead of me, though, so I’ll keep you updated.
Speaking of pumpkins, I’m also considering just dumping a pile of compost and topsoil over part of the front lawn and seeing if I can grow pumpkins there too. I’m low on supplies for making more raised beds so I figure a big dirt mound will work just as well for something as sprawling as pumpkin vines. I’d rather have that than the grass anyway, and it brings me one baby step closer to one day having turned all this wasted grass space into something productive.
It’s that time of year where the grass is going crazy! I’m out mowing with my little push mower way more than I’d like. It’s hot work these days!
Hive Updates
Last episode, I mentioned how the Carniolan queen (all that was left of my dead and dying package of bees) did not appear to be laying, and that her nucleus colony had queen cells. I moved that frame with the cells into the queenless split of my over wintered colony, in the hopes that some extra time would lead to her laying again. Well, no such luck. I went into the nuc a week later and found no queen and more queen cells. The colony had obviously decided to get rid of her and went through with it. I couldn’t find her body, sadly, but oh well. In hindsight, I wish I had left the queen cells but it is what it is. I wanted to give her a chance but the bees had already decided. How I wish they could tell me!
I just checked on this nuc and found a recently emerged queen! Based on the cap left on the queen cell (bees will break this down and recycle the wax) and how fuzzy she is, I think this queen emerged on the day I found her (May 25th). Very exciting discovery for me! Queen bees, like workers, are born soft and fuzzy. It takes a few days for her exoskeleton to harden, and those pale fuzzy hairs will darken and shed during that time. She will also build up her flight muscles in preparation for her mating flights.
The queen cells that I had moved from this nuc to the queenless split were pulled down by the colony, and they ended up creating quite the bounty of new ones! In fact, they had so many big, healthy queen cells that I made another nucleus colony, taking 4 queen cells that are almost ready to be capped. This left the queenless split with 2 fully capped queen cells, 2 almost ready to be capped, and a few they were still drawing out. This colony is still absolutely bursting with bees so I gave them some empty frames to work on. I also offered some 1:1 syrup, just in case they need it to make all that wax.
A week later, and this colony is confusing me a little. There are signs that a queen might have emerged (namely, what looks like the remnants of queen cells) but I didn’t spot one to confirm. They currently have 4 swarm cells (all hanging on the bottom of a frame) but I don’t want to pull these down in case these are the only queens they have. I originally decided to leave them be and just expand the brood area so that they (hopefully) won’t feel the need to swarm. However, I woke up the other day and decided to give them a frame of eggs from my queenright colony. I didn’t want to pull the swarm cells down unless I knew they have the option of making new queens but the decision was made for me as these cells appeared partly pulled down when I returned to give this colony eggs and brood.
My overwintered queen and her colony seem to be doing well! In fact, they were building up so fast, even after the split, that I put another deep/brood box on for them two weeks ago. They’re also working on a medium, drawing out comb, and filling the frames with honey. Recently, though, the queen seems to have slowed down with her egg laying and I’m not sure why. It could be the heat we have had lately or just influenced by genetics. Either way, I’ve made sure there’s room in the brood nest for more eggs, and I’ve started offering them syrup.
I’ve also finally decided on a name for this queen: Cailleach. She is a Gaelic deity, a divine hag and ancestor, associated with the creation of the landscape as well as the weather. In particular, she is associated with winter, and in Scottish mythology, she is often called Beira, Queen of the Winter. This seems like a fitting name for the only queen who survived winter here on the homestead!
My top bar hive is also building up nicely. They have 5-7 bars with wax now, all of different size. In fact, as of this week, I have expanded their nest cavity and put in 3 new bars for them to start working on! Now that there’s some lovely new comb in this hive, I have started being able to see eggs and the new queen. She’s a dark Italian beauty! I had intended to name her Flora but have decided on Fortuna, a goddess of fate, fortune, and fertility in Italian mythology. I’m really enjoying watching this colony work!
Gold Star Honeybees Top Bar Hive Review
Gold Star Honeybees (click for website) is owned and run by Christy Hemenway, a beekeeper, speaker, educator, and author on all things top bar beekeeping. In her book ‘The Thinking Beekeeper - A guide to natural beekeeping in top bar hives’, her about the author section states:
“So. . .just what did bees do before beekeepers? Searching for an answer to what seemed a simple question, Christy Hemenway launched her own investigation into what was really behind the growing problems with honeybees. She soon came to the conclusion that with honeybees, less is more - in other words, less human manipulation is better for the honeybee.
This insight led Christy to found Gold Star Honeybees in 2007 - to advance a low-tech, natural beekeeping system known as the top bar hive. The most important feature of a top bar hive is that it allows the bees to make their beeswax honeycombs in accord with their own natural systems, in a non-toxic hive environment. A Gold Star top bar hive is clean and green and supports the making of natural beeswax - beeswax made by bees, for bees!
In her TEDxDirigo talk in 2011, “Making the Connection - Honeybees, Food and You”, Christy highlighted the important connection between our agricultural system, honeybees and health. Spreading this same message through her bee-evangelist speaker persona The Bee Lady, Christy advocates and agitates for more organic food, less industrial agriculture and of course more natural, less invasive beekeeping.”
I first met Christy in 2019 when I attended her talk on getting started with top bar hives at the Tri County Beekeepers Association Spring Workshop (check out episode 16 for more on that workshop, as well as the following blog post).
Christy’s passion for bees and natural wax really inspired me, and I decided then and there that I’d one day give top bar beekeeping a try. When the time came for me to start looking into bringing a top bar hive to the homestead, I immediately went to Christy’s website for guidance. To my delight, I saw that she sells (or sold; there are no full hive kits currently listed for sale, more on that in a bit) a complete top bar hive kit with everything I’d need to build it; from the fully cut and treated wood to the screws and bolts. I immediately added it to my Amazon Wishlist and then promptly forgot about it as I got busy managing my apiary and homestead.
For my birthday last year, I was absolutely delighted to receive this hive kit from my wonderful in-laws. It felt too late in the season to get bees into it at that time so I decided to work on it as a winter and early spring project.
First, let’s talk about the design of this top bar hive as quite a lot of thought has clearly gone into it. The following information all comes directly from the Gold Star Honeybees website
The Gold Star top bar hive was first made available for sale in 2009. It’s interior cavity measures 45 inches in length, 15in wide, and 9.5in tall. It has a glass observation window along one side with a handy-dandy removable cover, and comes with 30 top bars and 2 follower boards, as well as an adjustable (and removable) bottom board.
Quick side note: What’s a follower board? Follower boards are used to limit space within the hive and encourage straight comb building. When installing bees into a top bar hive, you do not allow them access to the full cavity of the hive. Instead, you use the follower boards to create a smaller space for the bees to begin their comb building. Over time, you enlarge this space until the follower boards are no longer needed and all top bars are being used by the bees.
The top bars that come with this hive have a width of 1 ⅜ inch, which is considered a suitable width for brood comb. Honeycomb, in contrast, is often built up to 2 inches so spacers (sold separately) can be used to increase the space for honeycomb production. The spacers available add an additional ⅛ inch or ½ inch.
The vertical height (or thickness) of the bars is ⅜ inch, which helps prevent squashing bees during inspections. The bars rest across the top of the hive body’s sides, extending slightly over the edges; there is no inside lip or frame that the bars rest on. This design was specifically chosen so that each frame can be separated with a quick twist of the hive tool; there is no need to dig down the side of the frame to pry it up and out.
Top bars are most effective when they have some kind of comb guide. The Gold Star top bars use a beveled point as a comb guide that runs the full working length of the top bar, which helps prevent the bees building sharply curved comb at the edges, which often happens with bars that have a shorter comb guide. The added benefit of this type of full length comb guide is that it acts to center the bars, which limits them from sliding back and forth when the lid of the hive is removed.
The Gold Star website describes their hive as “truly the most versatile top bar hive available”, in part due to the multi-entrance design. Most top bar hives will have either an end entrance or a side entrance. The Gold Star hive offers both! There are 3 entrance holes in the center of the front side of the hive, as well as two entrance holes on either side of the observation window. These increase the versatility of the hive. When used with the two follower boards, this hive can be managed as a front entrance hive, an end entrance hive, and you can even manage two colonies within it at the same time.
The wood used is sustainably harvested solid cypress and comes pre-drilled. For assembly, all you need is a screwdriver or drill, and a staple gun. All other hardware comes with the kit, as well as a set of instructions.
Now, let’s talk about how the build process went!
I’d like to list pros and cons, and I’m going to start with the cons so that I can end on a positive note as, over all, this is a cracking hive that is attractive, easy to work with, and beginner friendly.
Cons:
The biggest, most immediate con is the price. As it’s not currently listed for sale (I suspect due to building supply and shipping prices soaring due to the pandemic) and I didn’t purchase it myself, I cannot remember the exact price but I believe it was between $600-700. For many, that is just too much to spend on one hive. However, I believe the price to be fair based on the quality of the materials and the time it takes for a small business owner to prepare a ready-to-go kit such as this. I also looked at average prices on assembled Langstroth boxes, hive kits, frames, etc, and found that a Langstroth hive (with bottom board, inner cover, and lid) made up of 1 brood/deep box and 2 medium/honey super will cost about $300-400. Unassembled is cheaper by about $100-150.
Christy also offers a downloadable guide for construction priced at $25 for those with access to the wood and tools needed to make their own Gold Star hive. You also have the option of buying the ‘hive kit’, which comes with all the hardware needed as well as the construction guide; you just supply the wood. This is priced at $75.
Although the quality of the wood is very good (more on that in ‘pros’!), I did find that some of the measurements were very slightly off, meaning that certain pieces did not fit as neatly as I expected. I had some issues with lining up screws, for instance, and I also feel that the removable bottom doesn’t fit quite as snug in the ‘closed’ position as it should.
The gable roof. It’s absolutely beautiful and I think it will do a wonderful job of protecting them from extreme weather and predators trying to get in. However, it’s huge and therefore very heavy. If you’re looking to get into top bar hives due to mobility issues, I would not recommend this style of lid and, since it’s the only kind sold with this particular kit, I therefore would not recommend this hive to you. I am interested in top bar beekeeping for a few reasons, and one of those is the accessibility issue. I’ve made no secret of my back issues, and the growing problem of my carpal tunnel. These physical problems limit my mobility some days, and they always limit my strength. Instead of hauling around the heavy boxes of Langstroth hives, I want to learn top bar beekeeping in case one day I can’t lift those boxes anymore. If that day ever comes, I will definitely have to replace this gable roof with something lighter and therefore easier to move.
Paper instructions. The kit is supposed to come with them and mine did not. Now, these are available online for free, which you can download and print. But I’m still mentioning this because it was a minor annoyance, especially as I prefer paper instructions to online options.
Pros:
The quality. This is solid, thick, weather treated wood. It’s heavy and hardworking! Not only does this mean that the structure of the hive is very strong but it also offers a certain amount of insulation for the colony. The wood used is thicker than that of standard Langstroth hives and therefore offers superior insulation. All hardware that comes with the kit is also good quality. I had no problems such as screws breaking or seeming flimsy, and all pieces were accounted for. This is not like buying furniture online where you might find pieces missing! Everything you need is right there to get you started.
The instructions and design are user-friendly. I am not at all crafty, and I consistently struggle with construction projects (I recently broke 2 drill bits in a week, urgh!) but I was able to put this hive together with minimal issues. As mentioned in the cons, I did find that some measurements were ever so slightly off so some things had to be redrilled or adjusted very slightly. Overall, though, this was easy to assemble and the instructions were clear and came with photos, which is very helpful.
The top bars. These are so well made! They’re sturdy, fit well, and the beveled point comb guide really does all that was promised. I have found them easy to lift without jostling the delicate comb, and I don’t squish the bees when returning them. They fit together snuggly and don’t flip up or move if I struggle with getting the lid on.
Height. Unlike some fully assembled top bar hive kits, this one comes with legs that the website describes as “the same height as your kitchen counter” so you’re not hunched over during inspections, nor do you need to reach up high to remove a box such as with a Langstroth.
Observation window. This is a great feature, allowing a quick peek into the hive without fully disturbing them. The cover easily slides in and out, and is held in place by little metal swivel latches; very easy to use! The cover is really an important feature as too much light going into the hive will stress the bees and might lead to them absconding.
Appearance. It honestly looks amazing. The gable roof is stunning, the wood is a beautiful pale colour, the bars rest in neat rows across the hive body, and that observation window with cover is such a neat feature that also looks good. Overall, despite no additional decoration besides painting the roof green, this hive is an attractive, eye-catching feature in my apiary of decorated Langstroth hives.
Getting Bees Into This Hive
If you’re used to working with vertical hives, your first issue when moving to a top bar is how to get bees into it. Although some clever and handy beekeepers have designed ways to transfer a 4 or 5 frame nucleus colony into a top bar hive, this is still a relatively complicated process. To keep things simple, you’ll want to start with a package of bees or a swarm.
With a package, you receive either 2, 3, or 5lbs of bees, all taken from many different hives. A caged queen is then placed with them for transport. This queen is not known to the vast majority (sometimes even all) of the bees of the package, and so it takes some time for them to accept her. Usually, this happens during their time spent traveling through the mail but extra precautions aren’t a bad idea. As the queen arrives in a cage, you will want to make sure she is alive and well before carefully removing the cork and replacing it with fondant or a piece of marshmallow. The time it takes for the worker bees to eat through this and release her will increase the chances of her being fully accepted by the colony.
With a swarm, the queen is already accepted and her colony is united, consisting entirely of her offspring (or sisters in the case of a newly emerged queen that was part of an ‘afterswarm’). If you manage to find a swarm hanging out in the open, or lure one into a swarm trap, you will still want to temporarily cage the queen in order to keep her safe during transport, and to ensure the colony remains together. You can use a piece of fondant or marshmallow as with a package.
With this particular hive design, you have two follower boards that allow you to create an inner cavity for the bees to work within. If given the full space of the interior immediately, the bees might choose to abscond, or they might create cross-comb. One of the things I really love about the assembly instructions that came with the Gold Star top bar hive is that it includes an installation guide, complete with a handy diagram:
As you can see, you have 30 top bars and two follower boards. Place 10 top bars along the left side of the hive and then the follower board with the hole in it. This area of the hive is where you will place a feeder for the bees with the hole allowing them to access this enclosed space. After the follower board, place 10 more top bars and then the final, solid follower board. Then place the remaining top bars. (Quick side note: when both follower boards are in place like this, I could only fit 9 frames on the right side of the hive. I don’t know if this is normal or not because I couldn’t find any information about this on the website or in the book. This could be another measurement error.)
Now you have 10 bars, a follower board with the hole in it, 10 bars, the solid follower board, and the remaining 10 (or 9) bars. Go to the space between the follower boards and remove the 10 bars; just put them aside for now. This is where you will place your bees. Beneath this section of the hive are 3 entrance holes, sealed with large corks. Remove the central cork. This will be the hive entrance.
To start, open your package. There is usually a plastic or wood piece stapled over one side; pry this up. Beneath, you will see a syrup can. Carefully lever this up and out of the package. Next to this, the queen cage is often held in place by a strip of plastic or thin metal. Carefully remove the queen cage, make sure she is alive, add the fondant or marshmallow as mentioned before, and then attach her to one of the top bars using a push pin. Make sure she is hanging down from the bar with the food-cork accessible for the worker bees to eat through. Do not press the screened part of the cage up against the bar; you want the workers to be able to feed her through the screen. Once this queen cage is hanging securely, move this frame over and pick up your package of bees. Holding the lid over the hole (where the can was), lift up the package and firmly tap one corner of it against the ground. This causes all the bees to tumble down to that corner in a big mass or ball. Now, hold the opening of the package over the space you have made in the hive and gently shake the bees in. You might need to thump the package a few times to get all the bees out. There’s always a few that hang on, though, so I usually place the package, hole facing up, beneath the entrance of the hive.
Now that your queen and big ball of bees is inside the hive, carefully place the top bars back with the queen at the center. Replace the lid of the hive and voila! You just installed a package of bees (or a swarm) into a top bar hive. Return in 3-5 days to make sure the queen has been released. If she is still in there, you can remove the candy yourself and let her walk out onto a frame or the interior side of the hive, or poke some holes in it so there's less for the bees to chew through.
This is the exact process I used and it worked really well! I had some trouble hanging the queen cage securely due to my lack of dexterity but, once she was in place, the bees all formed a cluster around her. They managed to get through a nasty cold snap like this. Once that passed, they started drawing wax and, after 15 days, they have drawn comb on 7 top bars and are just starting on the 8th! That seems like a pretty good build time to me. I’m certainly impressed!
Management Experience (So Far)
Being completely new to top bar hives, I will say that the management style has taken some getting used to. At first, I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, and the whole process of hive inspections felt rather clumsy. The biggest challenge was as simple as lifting and returning the top bars. As the bees went into a completely empty hive and have to build their own comb, they’re constantly in a process of building new wax, and they do this by ‘festooning’. This delightful term describes the way bees will cling together, leg to leg, in a kind of chain as they work as a group to produce beeswax comb. Think of it as the bees creating a kind of scaffold from which to work from.
Due to this, every time I lift a frame, I am disturbing festooning, causing them to break apart and often fall in small groups to the bottom of the hive. Not fun for them! This was especially bad early on as the bees worked diligently to get the comb built. I found that separating the bars very slowly helped them fall off onto surrounding bars instead of all tumbling to the floor.
Another issue early on after the install was the process of returning the bars without squishing the bees. Although the design does help decrease this, the bees themselves were unused to the hive structure and would often start crawling along the top of the bars once I disturbed them. Getting them to go back into the hive was often a struggle as they seemed to want to hang out right where the two bars would come together. I found that gently smoking them every time I wanted to return a bar to its original position helped a great deal.
Now that we’re 18 days on and the bees have full comb to work with, both these issues are starting to resolve themselves. In terms of festooning, there’s a lot less of the bees hanging in great chains as they’re often now able to hold onto an adjacent frame as they work on drawing more wax. I do still separate the bars carefully but the bees tend to let go earlier on and grab hold of nearby comb.
As for returning the bars, the bees seem to know how things work now and are more likely to be working much lower on the comb than before. When they are just starting to build the comb, they must by necessity be right up on the beveled comb guide and would move upward to investigate why the colony was exposed to light. Now, they’re often low on the comb, working on adding more wax to the existing structure. They’ve also started sealing the bars together using propolis, a good sign of them working on the health and security of the colony! This also seems to keep them from clambering above the comb guide, making the process of lowering a bar back into the hive much easier. In fact, when I last inspected this colony, I didn’t need to use even one puff of smoke. Lovely!
While the bees are comb building, it’s also hard to find the queen. She will usually remain deep in the mass of busy workers, making her very hard to spot. With little comb, it’s also difficult to see those tiny eggs under all the activity. Once the bees have a few bars of comb, however, finding eggs and the queen becomes a lot easier. I did not see mine until 18 days after installation. Up until that point, I trusted she was there based on the behaviour of the colony; the bees were calm and industrious, working as a unit to build wax and bring in food. Without a queen or brood to unite them through pheromones, it’s doubtful the bees would have remained in the hive. Their willingness to stay put and work, as well as their continued docile nature, told me that the queen was alive and well within the hive.
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It’s hard to review the Gold Star top bar hive without also mentioning Christy’s book, The Thinking Beekeeper. This is an excellent ‘how to’ guide when it comes to setting up and managing a top bar hive, whether it’s one of her own design or not.
Broken into two parts, part one covers the history of beekeeping, different hive designs, why beeswax is so important, and basic bee biology. Part two is the ‘how to’ section, covering details on top bar hive design, how to get started with a top bar, how to perform inspections, overwintering the hive, harvesting honey and wax, and what pests and diseases you might encounter (as well as treatment options). It ends with two Appendixes; Appendix A provides a sample hive inspection diagram, and Appendix B lists bee and beekeeping resources.
The best part of this book are the diagrams! Christy has provided clear and easy to understand diagrams that outline how to install a package, how to help your colony expand, how to ‘shift’ the colony to ensure they use all of the space provided, and how to prepare them for winter.
Christy also published a follow up to this book called Advanced Top Bar Beekeeping - Next Steps for the Thinking Beekeeper, which I have yet to read but will do so shortly.
For my next episode, I’m going to share a full review of her first book, The Thinking Beekeeper. In preparation for that, I am doing a giveaway! I have an additional copy of this book up for grabs. In order to enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave me a comment on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or here on my website, telling me what appeals to you about top bar hives. You can also email me at homesteadhensandhoney@gmail.com. Bonus entries for anyone who leaves me a review on iTunes!
Each entry will be numbered and I’ll use a random number generator to select the winner. The winner will be announced on my next episode so you have until June 6th to enter!
I’m afraid that I have to restrict this to the US only due to current high shipping costs. My apologies to my international listeners!
So let me know what you think about top bar hives and enter for your chance to win.
Until next time, try to relax like Chappie here! If only we could all be this cozy. <3