Bees

So far I've learned a lot about choices of beekeeping and the benefits and downfalls of each of them. Here Agape and Kwao have about 70 hives, 5 or so are langstroth hives. Their reason for top bar hives is economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and social sustainability. First of all, making your own top bar hive is far less expensive than buying parts to build a langstroth hive. Second, langstroth hives are much more aggressive which to me is a clear indicator that it is a less natural formation for them and many langstroth beekeepers use pesticides which harm your bees and poison your products. Agape and Kwao use only french thyme and guinea hen to fight of pests. Langstroth hives also have to be handled much more when you have to pick up entire boxes (10 frames at a time) full of bees, which can be up to 100 pounds if it is full of honey. As opposed to picking up one frame at a time when working with top bars which weigh up to 10 pounds when full of honey. This makes top bar hive beekeeping much more accessible and easily introduced to people who never thought they could do bee keeping. I went into the hives one of my first days here with very little introduction and I was so surprised at how much I learned so quickly and how I was completely capable of holding a frame full of capped brood and coated in bees. People have chosen langstroth hives because of the honey production. The bees produce more honey because the frames require a foundation that is a thin piece of bees wax printed with only worker cells on it, no drones. This means that the bees continue to only build worker cells and the workers make honey and protect the hive, while the drones only live to mate with the queen. That is why langstroth's are used in more of a production system and for people who only want the honey. Many beekeepers with langstroth hives are also convinced that drones are not necessary for the hive and a successful honey flow. Drones don't make honey so therefor they are considered useless. It has been proven however that not letting your bees produce drones does not help your colony in the long run. If you want cost efficient, healthy and happy bees however, and you're also interested in rendering the wax, then top bar is the way to go.