About Us

Top Bar Beekeeping Store

Bee Thinking is the world's first beekeeping supplier specializing in foundationless top bar hives and Warre hives. We are focused on providing our customers with the high-quality, sustainably built products at reasonable prices.

All of our horizontal top bar hives and Warre hives are constructed from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified lumber from the Pacific Northwest at our mill with precision tools in Portland, Oregon. The Western Red Cedar used to build our hives has been socially and environmentally harvested.

We use these horizontal top bar and Warre hives in our own apiary, and we love to pass on our own knowledge of top bar beekeeping to beekeepers new and old.

We take pride in the top bar hives that we build and we are absolutely dedicated to our customer's needs. If you need something special done with your order, or if you have questions about foundationless, top bar or Warre beekeeping, please let us know by phone or e-mail.

Services

In addition to top bar and Warré hive products, we also provide a number of services to our community, including: Swarm removal, colony removal from cavities (such as walls, mailboxes, etc.), classes, public speaking and one-on-one training. If you are interested in any of our services, please use the contact us link on this page.

Resources

We have the most up-to-date directory of bee related resources on the internet. We strive to provide an intuitive, community-driven environment that allows you, the user, to find and submit information easily.

There is a vast array of bee information -- both ancient and modern -- that, for those willing to make the effort, has proven invaluable in their understanding and success as beekeepers. However, this information has never been thoroughly categorized or made searchable for the average beekeeper. It is our goal, then, to provide the most exhaustive and user-friendly bee reference site in the world, and further the cause of bee conservation and research. 

We scour the internet daily looking for the gems of bee research, literature, and other forms of information, and then categorize it and make it easily accessible to you, the beekeeper!

Our Philosophy

The chief end of beekeeping should be to provide the bees with the ideal environment in which to thrive. To do this, the beekeeper must engross his or her mind with a wide range of bee-related information detailing the bee lifecycle, history, hive design, management and innumerable other topics of importance. Without this knowledge, it is unlikely that the bees or the keeper will have success in their endeavors.

In addition to book knowledge, it is of utmost importance that beekeepers spend time watching their bees. Not dousing them with chemicals, moving them around, splitting them, marking them or otherwise incessantly pestering them, but simply watching them. One can learn a tremendous amount about the health and strength of the colony simply by watching the entrance.

We don’t use or endorse the use of chemicals in the hive whatsoever. We don’t treat with powdered sugar or use Varroa screens. We are focused on giving the bees a healthy environment, and promoting healthy genes. Colonies that succumb to Varroa or other pests and diseases are not increased the next season. Those that survive we split from and increase our stock.

If you have questions or comments about our philosophy, please feel free to contact us!

Who We Are

Bee Thinking was created 2008 by Matthew and Jill Reed as an internet resource for beekeepers throughout the world. At the same time we began mass-producing foundationless top bar and Warre hives for our own apiary. Soon we had a great deal of interest from those around us and abroad in getting involved in foundationless beekeeping, and we began selling the same hives we use to those in our community. After that we began selling them on our website to customers throughout North America.

When not reading about beekeeping, building hives or talking the ear off anyone who will listen, Matthew spends his days as an IT Manager for a local software company. Jill works in wine sales in Oregon’s bountiful wine country.

"There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance." -- Henry David Thoreau