I am so excited that you are doing using a Top Bar hive. I am not a hive keeper, but hope to one day be one. From my limited research Top Bar hives are very attractive to me.

Everett and Missy's hives look beautiful! Did they take inspiration from your Micro Business book?

Emily --- The hive is so beautiful I dreamed about it last night! (I think I was painting it white.)

Everett does say our microbusiness has been an inspiration to him, although half the techniques we use, we learned from him.... We're hoping their microbusiness takes off and gives them more free time so we can see them more!

Kudos to Everett, Missy and Tommy - the hive looks awesome! Might get me into beekeeping sooner than I'd thought. I worry though since we're (every other)weekenders - would bees be OK with that little attention?

De,

They'd be fine. If you're checking on your bees every week you're probably just going to do more harm than good.

Thanks for helping us test this out Anna!

Everett

De --- I agree with Everett --- bees don't need much time at all (although it does take some research at first to learn about them). I'd say the least time-consuming livestock are compost worms, then honeybees, then chickens (with rabbits in there somewhere --- I haven't kept them myself, so can't tell you where.)

Everett --- Thanks so much for the opportunity! We're looking forward to learning about top bar hives hands on.

Thanks Everett and Anna. One other question, do either of you have electric fencing around your hives for bears? The guy at Blacksnake Meadery says he has to, and while we've not seen them on our property they have been within a couple miles.

De --- We're not in the height of bear country (although Mark did see a bear cub at the edge of our yard several years ago) and we haven't had any trouble. That said, we keep our hives in the core of our homestead, with chicken moats and a patrolling Lucy outside them, so I suspect most bears would figure it's just not worth their while to break in. You might follow our lead and keep the hives close to home, despite the fact that they don't need all that much attention and otherwise fit into a further out zone by most permaculturalists' standards.