Tag Archives: top bar

For a month I read, pondered, tested and finally decided on what seems to be the ideal, cost-effecive, clean method of melting and applying wax to top bars and anything else; the Presto Kitchen Kettle!

Simply put in a chunk of wax, set the kettle to warm and within a minute or two you are left with a beautiful puddle of wax that can easily be poured, painted or applied in any fashion you desire.

The first 200 top bars that we made for the 10 top bar hives were completed using the painstaking heat-wax-and-kneel-by-the-oven method. The kitchen kettle can be placed anywhere -- even in one's shop or outdoors and it never gets the wax too hot. You can find one of these for approximately $30 at most stores.

My decision to go with this wax melting tool was inspired by this site: http://www.candletech.com/general-information/do-it-yourself-wax-melter/

Yesterday I dropped off my wife at work, procured some coffee from the local coffee house and proceeded home, determined to make headway on the remaining hive projects. After 5.5 hours of measuring, ripping and screwing boards, here are the results:

10 beautiful Warre roofs:

From Shop 3-22-09

It took over 70 feet of cedar, 180 screws, produced a lot of sawdust (which I bagged to use for the quilts), but finally got me over the hump in this 20 hive production project. At this point I'm left with creating some top bar roofs, windows, mounting screens, creating Warre quilts, Warre stands, and a few hundred more top bars. I think everything is on track for the hives to be placed in the first week of April.

Here are some more images of what it's like creating 10 Warre roofs at a time:

70 wood pieces, recently ripped:

From Shop 3-22-09

Waiting for roofs:

From Shop 3-22-09

Two nights ago I picked up 170 linear feet of Cedar -- Upon arriving home and stickering it it looked like this:

From Shop

After today's work it looks like this:

From Shop

Today I completed the body of the final top bar hive, in addition to 12 more Warre boxes, bringing the total to 31 boxes. This should be enough for the 10 Warre hives until the nectar flow is really going. At this point I need to focus on building roofs, floors, top bars, windows and other miscellaneous portions of the hives so that they are ready to be in place at the wineries by the first week of April.

Today's images:

Soon to be 12 Warre boxes:

From Shop

Walla!:

From Shop

The last top bar hive on the assembly line:

From Shop

A lot of warre boxes, most awaiting handles and bars:

From Shop

The first top bar hive in place at headquarters:

From Shop