It's the dead of winter here in the Pacific Northwest (Oak Grove, Oregon), and the bees are buckled down waiting eagerly for the arrival of spring 2010. On Tuesday there was a freak snowstorm that brought our city to a standstill, but the bees perservered in their Warre hives as well as their horizontal top bar hives. Here's a picture of our backyard with two horizontal top bar hives, two Warre hives and the natural stump hive that is currently vacant.
As the 2009 year winds down we are working diligently to keep up with Horizontal Top bar Hive and Warre Hive orders. We anticipate the top bar hive orders of both styles will continue increasing as the 2010 beekeeping season draws near. We’ve got our suppliers lined up in preparation for an increase in production and while there have been a few hitches here and there, we believe we’re providing the best top bar hives for the price, produced from as many sustainably harvested and long-lasting materials as possible. But the question remains, what other top bar/foundationless supplies are our customers looking for, if any?
We’re considering a number of options, such as top bar nucleus boxes that will work interchangeably with our top bar hives; top bar observation hives for those who enjoy showing off their bees beautifully constructed comb to neighbors and other events. What are you looking for in a top bar beekeeping supplier? What products would you love to see readily available to the top bar beekeeping community? It is our goal to provide the best service, best products and source for all things related to top bar beekeeping, and without you we cannot do it.
What a year! We’ve been so busy since July that we’ve had little spare time to update the blog.
Here’s a recap of the 2009 beekeeping season at Bee Thinking: In April this year we started 8 horizontal top bar hives and 12 Warre hives throughout the Portland area as well as at three wineries: Cameron, Sokol Blosser and Lachini. 20 packages and numerous swarms populated the hives, ultimately reaching a peak of around 25 hives.
