Top Bar Beehive: A Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary for Disappearing Honey Bees

Save the vanishing honeybees! Tumbledown acted quickly on his decision to create a honeybee haven. As promised, here's the story of how he constructed a top bar beehive for his back yard in the form of simple instructions and construction plans, so you can do the same. Let's lessen the impact of colony collapse disorder by creating a sustainable network of localized and diversified apiculture.

Here's a start.

Parts list:

1 1X6 -71" standard pine ($2.59)

2 1X12 -8' standard pine ($8.49 each)

2 8"X8"X16" concrete blocks ($1.34 each)

1 19"X47" plywood cover (from leftover scrap)

8D siding split galvanized nails ($.50?)

2" deck screws ($.50?)

1 lb. cake/block of yellow beeswax ($4.61)

Total: $27.86 + tax

Tumbledown's beehive construction plan is an adaptation of the Kenya style (sloped sides) hive detailed at the Bush Farms site.

Step One: Board Cuts

Cut the 1X6 to 47 1/4" (bottom).

Cut each 1X12 into one 47 1/4" length (a side) and one 15" length (an end piece).

Cut the remaining sections into top bars for brood nest (1" X 1 1/4" X 15") and top bars for honey (1" X 1 1/2" X 15").

Step Two: Assembly of Beehive Body

Nail the sides of the hive to the bottom board.

Center the bottom edge of the 15" hive ends on the bottom board of the hive body and attach each end to the hive body at the center point with a deck screw.

Spread the sides until the top corner of each side touches the top corner of each end. Attach each corner with a deck screw, then add screws at intervals sufficient to secure the ends to the sides.

Fully assembled top bar beehive body:

Step Three: Finishing Top Bars

Tumbledown took the easy way out (again) with the creation of his top bars. Rather than deal with the complications of inserting, gluing, and nailing a "beveled comb guide," Tumbledown simply measured 1 1/2" from the end of each 15" top bar and marked these points as the outer limits for a 12" center cut with a keystone shaped 1/4" router bit.

Into these center cuts Tumbledown poured beeswax melted in a makeshift double boiler (a 4 quart pot filled 1/8-1/4 with water heated to the low boiling point, enough to float a coffee can that has been squeezed to make a pouring spout).

Below is a view of the top bars with one layer of wax poured into the center. Another layer is added after the first layer cools so that the finished bar includes a line of beeswax embedded in the top bar, but also extending well above the surface of the bar (to provide a guide for the bees as to the direction for constructing the comb).

Step Four: Placing the Beehive

This is perhaps the greatest challenge, finding a suitable place well out of the line of human traffic. The results will be monitored closely and the hive moved if the bees prove too great a challenge. Tumbledown chose the least busy corner of his back yard and fenced the area completely with a temporary fence to prevent inadvertent visits by the merely curious. (Climbing over a 4-foot fence is not inadvertent. If you do that, you deserve to get stung.) Notice in the photo how the blocks have been coated with a 3"-4" band of used motor oil all around (to discourage ants). The ground all around the hive has been planted in grasses and clovers. Peas and other climbing vines will provide a screen around two sides.

Tumbledown also provided a ready water source.

Tumbledown also purchased two vials of "swarm catch" with Nasonov from the Dadant company ($6.75 for two) that's where the beeswax also originated). These are fixed to the inside of the hive on the end that serves as the entrance. The entrance to the beehive is created by placing the first bar (the bar nearest the end) at least 3/8" from the end. This creates a gap of approximately 3/8" wide X 3/4" high at two sides on one end for the bees to use as an entrance.

Already, in early April, bees were seen buzzing near the hive. (On 70-80 degree days. But, of course, for the last few days, we've had an unusually late and hard freeze with low temps in the teens and 20s and the daytime highs barely climbing above freezing. ...so, no bees to be seen and worries aplenty about newly planted fruit trees and the like.)

Tumbledown hopes to see a swarm take up residence in his beehive this spring. He would like to see a remarkable increase in the pollination of his garden, and in a year or three to take a bit of honey from the hive. Stay tuned to the blog for occasional updates on the whole adventure--and when "success" is finally within grasp, Tumbledown will add a bee page to his "how to" list on the web site.

In the meantime, visit the historic bee page at Tumbledown Farm ("Bees in the Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, vol. III) and here's hoping for a "resurrection" of the honeybees on this Good Friday 2007.

Tumbledown Farm

Where Have All the Bees Gone?

My father-in-law once asked me if I had noticed that the bees were all disappearing. At first I thought he had lost his mind. Later, I thought that the "difference" I notice could be attributed to the difference between playing outside--among the bees--all day and sitting inside at a desk in front of the computer screen. Of course the bees had disappeared from my view. But my father-in-law worked outside a lot, and he had read the National Geographic Magazine (authorities on such things), and he had a longer view of the past (as a WWII veteran pilot) than I have. So, before you laugh at Tubledown for reviving his father-in-law's question--or for thinking that there should be bees buzzing around in March in Indiana, take a look at what the New York Times has been saying ("Losing their Buzz," by May R. Berenbaum, Dept. of Entomology, U of Illinois, March 2, 2007; "Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril," by Alexei Barrionuevo, February 27, 2007). Berenbuam, Barrionuevo, and many other news outlets have begun to report at length about the "sudden" (since fall 2006) disappearance of millions of bees: "This winter, in more than 20 states, beekeepers have noticed that their honeybees have mysteriously vanished, leaving behind no clues as to their whereabouts. There are no tell-tale dead bodies either inside colonies or out in front of hives, where bees typically deposit corpses of dead nestmates. What’s more, the afflicted colonies tend to be full of honey, pollen and larvae, as if all of the workers in the nest precipitously decamped on some prearranged signal" (Berenbaum). They are calling it "colony collapse disorder" (though it was previously termed Fall-Dwindle Disease). As of today (03/17/2007), Tumbledown's Google search returns 76,300 hits for the new term--there's plenty of buzz alright.

But not to fear! The feds and the academic community are all over the disaster like honey sauce on chicken strips. A CCD working group has been formed to get at the heart of the swarm (or lack thereof; see the very informative Purdue page and related links). And guess what, as hinted by the Times coverage, the preliminary report is pointing a finger at the "business" end of "agribusiness"--the beekeeping "industry." In interviews with affected beekeepers, the working group discovered that "All were migratory beekeepers. All had moved their colonies at least 2 times in the 2006 season, with some colonies being moved as many as five times." The report then states the obvious: moving stresses bees (10%-30% die), and spreads disease, and the pollination of some monocrops (e.g., blueberries) is insufficient to sustain a colony.

Who knows what the working group will recommend in its final report, but Tumbledown would wager that the recommendation will NOT be to increase the number and diversity of beekeepers, nor to stop moving the hives cross country--twice, five times--just to polinate monocrops on huge farms and orchards.

But that should be the recommendation. Fix the root of the problem, the unsustainable agricultural economy. Sustainable agriculture, sustainable apiculture, means local agriculture and local apiculture. In other words, it means beekeeping without diesel trucking. It means beekeeping without moving the hives. (And thus without transporting the pests--the mites and beetles--that require apiary registration and inspections by the Department of Natural Resources.) It means that farmers--not just the "bee farmers," but every farmer, and perhaps every significant landholder--is a beekeeper. In other words, sustainable farming is diversified farming. It is local and decentralized.

Where have all the bees gone? They are being carted around the country by fewer and fewer beekeepers, carrying diseases and pests with them every poluting, energy consuming, globe-warming mile. The've gone the way of the woodlots, eliminated by the tens and hundreds of acres at a time to make way for houses so close together that there isn't room for the flowers it would take to support the bees and their hives (if there were hives). The bees are killed by insecticidal overspray, and by mosquito control.

Tumbledown has decided to do his part for localized beekeeping, in part because Tumbledown has embraced Cobbett's truism about "every farmer"--"he ought to pay for nothing in money, which he can pay for in anything but money" (As quoted by John Seymour, Farming for Self-Sufficiency : Independence on a 5-acre Farm). If nature (the bees and flowers) will provide sugar (or honey, which is better for you than the processed stuff) for free for the taking, who is Tumbledown to argue? And what about the exorbitant cost of hives and beekeeping paraphernalia? Tumbledown has decided that there must be a way to raise a hive of bees without filing for bankruptcy. So, perhaps a Top Bar Hive is the way to go. Tumbledown has done the math. A hobby kit from Dadant for $125 (the way Tumbledown would have started a few years ago) or a "do it yourself" experiment with 1X6 and 1X12 boards from the local lumberyard (less than $25 if Tumbledown's math is right). Keep an eye on the blog for a recounting of the adventure!

[Illustration from "Bees" in the Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, vol. III]

Where have all the bees gone? Tumbledown hopes that the answer to that question is "to my back yard" this summer. So, I guess I need to build a hive and find some sugar. What's that old saying, something about attracting more bees with honey than vinegar?

Tumbledown Farm

George Washington Carver: Scientist & Symbol

McMurry, Linda O. George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.



Tumbledown was a little annoyed by the adoring tone that sometimes seemed to permeate the descriptions of Carver in the early sections of the book, thinking they sometimes veared toward hagiography. This perception changed when, on closer inspection, it was obvious that the assessments that annoyed most were contemporary with the man. The sweeping generalizations--that Carver was a genius, a great teacher, a great lecturer, and the like--were for the most part embodied in numerous quotes from Booker T. Washington, James Wilson (former teacher at Iowa, and Secretary of Agriculture, head of USDA), and correspondence from Carver's students. Careful reading of this George Washington Carver biography reveals that the author, though sympathetic with the subject, is also critically aware of Carver's weaknesses. The refrain (also from Carver) that he was a starter and a dreamer, not a finisher, an inspirer of others and a popularizer, not a groundbreaker or highly original Tuskegee scientist (which is not to diminish the significance of his innovations on and original applications of already formulated ideas, especially, as McMurry suggests, in the direction of aiding those "fartherest down") is proof enough of a somewhat fair and balanced treatment. This, alongside descriptions of Carver's at times stormy relations with Bridgeforth and Washington, are enough to put thoughts of hagiography to rest. (The idea of Carver as symbol, especially of the New South, seems to be reaching a bit far. But even here the treatment is not unremittingly positive.)

Why would Tumbledown read and recommend this biography of a scientist and academic? Because Carver's life's work was dedicated to the improvement of small, diversified farms and their habitants at precisely the time that "most agricultural researchers were heading in another direction. Increasing amounts of federal and state funds were piped into mechanization and efficiency projects that aided the big agribusiness units, not the small farmer" (p. 92). Carver, as everyone knows, taught farmers to grow more than one crop--to supplement cotton with peanuts and sweet potatoes. (Though less famously, Carver also experimented with and recommended soybeans and alfalfa and the raising of animals on Southern farms.) Though the Tuskegee web site hardly mentions Carver (Booker T., the other "Washington" is everywhere lauded), the title of this year's Annual Farmers Conference is a continuing tribute to Carver's interests and influence: "Sustainable Small-Scale Family Farms in the Southern Black Belt: Nurturing the Land and its people."

Overall, an excellent introduction into an important subject--and an easy read for an academic title. Though the book does not provide the details (peanut recipes or specific crop recommendations) of Carver's work, it is well documented and therefore provides a beginning point for further research into this important contributor to the welfare of small, diversified farms. And what could be better for Black History Month?

Additional Reading:
Holt, Rackham. George Washington Carver: An American Biography. Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1943.

Crop Rotation for Ugly Tomatoes

Tumbledown read with interest and appreciation Verlyn Klinkenborg's rip of winter tomatoes and riff on the tasty virtues of the UglyRipe. (NYTimes, Editorial Notebook, January 31, 2007, "Growing the Winter Tomato.") The editorial waxed almost poetical about casting aside the cardboard texture and bland non-flavor of the perfectly round, firm (hard as rocks) artificially colored (gassed) red balls usually dubbed "tomatoes" by the local supermarket produce aisle--in favor of lumpier, unevenly colored flavor bombs, a.k.a., the UglyRipes.

But Klinkenborg stops short of a full endorsement of this new tomato because the UglyRipe's growers (Santa Sweets) use "methyl bromide, a powerful, ozone-depleting pesticide, to fumigate the soil in which conventional UglyRipes grow." The point for Klinkenborg is that fresh tomatoes in winter--whether the terrible ones we are used to or the better ones we have yet to taste--are not worth the methyl bromide cost. Tumbledown would add that there are other unacceptable costs to be tallied. The expectation that Indiana residents should enjoy "fresh" winter tomatoes is dangerously irrational; the delusion is especially not worth the diesel fuel used to ship them. But if we continue pouring carbon into the atmosphere at the rate we have been in order to ship fresh tomatoes to Indiana in January, global warming may yet provide Tumbledown with ripe February tomatoes before he expires for good.

And what about the methyl bromide? According to Klinkenborg, "under the terms of the Montreal Protocol, the use of methyl bromide was supposed to be phased out completely by January 2005." Why? Because it depletes the ozone. According to the EPA sheet on the phaseout, the exemptions are allowed for "agricultural users with no technically or economically feasible alternatives." So, what pests are these Florida tomato farmers killing with this "indispensable" pesticide for which there are no "feasible alternatives"? The pests are the usual culprits for tomato growers, nematodes and Verticillium and Fusarium wilts. (See the whining by the growers on the USDA research site.) Every gardener contends with them. (See the entry on tomatoes in any of the most basic gardening books: e.g., IDG's Vegetable Gardening for Dummies or Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening; or any basic text about agronomy and crop management.) And the most feasible alternatives to methyl bromide have been known for centuries. What are they? Try crop rotation...and acceptance of naturally uninflated yields! (Every description of crop rotation for the past 100 years has emphasized its effectiveness against pests and diseases. See the Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, Vol. II; or Andrew Boss' Farm Management; or the concluding section of Wilson and Warburton's book on Field Crops for a history of crop rotation and a description of its practice.) So, why has the obvious--crop rotation as a form of pest control--the better alternative, been rejected? Because it would take 2/3 (in a three-year rotation) to 4/5 (in a five-year rotation) or more of the tomato acreage out of production in any given year and a reduction in artificially inflated yields. In other words, tomato production would become localized or highly regionalized, and seasonal, and places like Indiana would have to go without, or pay extravagant prices for, the "luxury" of "winter" tomatoes.

Could such be done in Indiana? Yes. It was done by Helen and Scott Nearing from 1932 in the much harsher climate of Vermont and Maine. (The Good Life) But it cannot be done without a change in the way we eat. Eat what comes naturally to your locality. I think that must have been Klinkenborg's point.

Tumbledown Farm

Sowing Seeds, Spreading Manure

"Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:24-25 NRSV)

“So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!" (Luke 14:33-35 NRSV)

Tumbledown recalls these words of Jesus as he looks through brightly colored seed catalogs on gray days in January and February. In fact, he is behind on such thinking this year. The seed order ought to be in the mail by now. Soon, even in Indiana, it will be time to start the tomatoes and peppers inside under the lights to give them a head start on summer. This year the Burpee catalog sports the New Porterhouse Beefsteak Tomato, “sure to beat any record in the neighborhood.” (But I’ll bet Burpee never went up against any real tomato growers. The tomato competition is fierce in this neck of the woods.)

The picture on the cover is of bright red, perfectly shaped, 4 lb. tomatoes. These purveyors of seed know better than to put pictures of the shriveled up seeds on the cover. They are selling us the plump and juicy fruit at the apex of life, even though it is the tiny dry seed that will arrive in our mailbox. Tumbledown always seems to buy more seed than he can possibly use, because he is sold on these pictures of its potential. His eyes are bigger by far than his garden. But he also never plants quite enough of the seed he over-buys. Sometimes seed packets go unopened, unused. Sometimes they keep until next year, but mostly they must be discarded, lifeless, the potential for 4 lb. tomatoes wasted. Better--even in a Tumbledown garden, where not much reaches its full catalog potential--to put the seed in the ground than to keep it sitting on the shelf.

There is another substance coveted by gardeners that works the same way. Tumbledown gets his from a farmer friend. Tumbledown's mother-in-law reminded him of it this Christmas with a famous quote by Thornton Wilder from “The Matchmaker,” “Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow.” (Actually, my mother-in-law attributed the quote to the title character of “Hello, Dolly!” … but from Wilder the quote sounds more literary and highfalutin.) The quote has also been famously attributed to the likes of Francis Bacon and John Paul Getty, who may have had a nodding acquaintance with the attributes of money. Whoever said it, the quote is widely used, so the resemblance must be remarkable. The quote is usually concluded—usually by a politician—with the comment that manure, if piled up in one place, just stinks to high heaven.

I doubt that Burpee sells much manure, but if they did, they would probably try to sell it like they do their seeds, with pictures of ripe red berries and tomatoes.

You’ve often heard what Jesus said about seeds and manure piles, and about money. But mostly Jesus was talking about life—his and ours. To convince us, he reminds us of the “much fruit” that will result from our death. Better to spread the wealth and lose our own life, better to plant the seeds and watch another generation of green things grow up, than to leave the seeds to sit on the shelf and store up the manure in stinky piles.

Now, where did I put that order form?

Tumbledown Farm

Payne Hollow: Life on the Fringe of Society

Hubbard, Harlan. Payne Hollow: Life on the Fringe of Society. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1974.



This book is an easy, quick read (167 pp., 4"X5", relatively large print, with Harlan's sketches scattered throughout). It is one couple's story--that of Anna (not a farmer, "town bred" ..."with high standards of respectability and cleanliness," a former librarian) and Harlan (a "shantyboater"). After taking a shantyboat down the Ohio, into the Mississippi and on to New Orleans, they spend some time in Bayou country along the Intracoastal Canal. There they sold their shantyboat and returned by car to a suburban house on the banks of the Ohio River.

The point of the book is the decision to live small. Though the couple could have enjoyed the relative comfort of a house in the center of suburban society, they chose to rent out that house and pursue a less cluttered life for themselves on the "fringe." They returned to Payne Hollow, a place along the Ohio where they had tethered their shantyboat for a summer, swallowed their "drifter and squatter" principles enough to purchase the small holding, and build their shelter with their own hands, raising their own food (garden and goats), living close to nature and telling their own version of The Good Life (Helen and Scott Nearing's tale of similar adventure).

This book is not for the person wanting to learn "how to" set up his or her own homestead. The lessons are writ large, not with the sort of detail needed to emulate the Hubbards. However, for the person needing inspiration to live well, now--especially for the person who feels confined, smothered, and oppressed by the constraints of today's polite consumer society and needs the encouragement and confidence that life can be lived bare bones, this is just the shot in the arm or kick in the pants to send you over the edge.

World's Best Thumbprint Cookies

There has never been a better, more delicious thumbprint cookie, ever! In the blog entry about the Little Red Hen, Tumbledown described the process of harvesting winter wheat with the scythe, threshing and winnowing the grain in preparation for grinding and baking. Today, Tumbledown tasted the fruit of his efforts. The result is so wonderful he must share it with all of you. First, of course, we must grind the winter wheat.

Tumbledown's hand mill is one of the cheapest made, a Porkert from Lehman's (a version is also available from Johnny's, and even more Grain Mills at Amazon.com). There are much better mills to be had, for a price, but the point is to grow and grind your own. If you can afford it, there is nothing like working with good tools to make for satisfaction. If not, don't sweat it; this mill works just fine.

After grinding two cups of flour from the remaining wheat (which Tumbledown stores in plastic containers in a refrigerator), preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of real butter

1/2 cup of shortening

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of sugar

2 eggs (separated)

2 cups of freshly ground flour

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

2 cups of finely chopped walnuts (or pecans, in a pinch)

1 pint of fresh Raspberry jam preserves from the fall harvest.

1 cup of powdered sugar.

Instructions:

In a large mixing bowl cream the shortening and butter with the sugar and 2 egg yolks. Add vanilla and beat for 1 minute. Combine salt and flour and add to previous mixture, continuing to stir and knead ingredients until it reaches the consistency of a firm dough. Form individual cookies by pinching off small amounts of dough and rolling them into balls (each about the size of a golf ball). Dip the balls of dough into a small bowl containing the two egg whites and then roll a layer of chopped nuts onto the surface of each ball. Place the balls on a parchment covered cookie sheet (or, if you like to scrub, onto an ungreased cookie sheet) allowing a space about the size of a cookie between each cookie. Bake for five minutes at 375 degrees. Remove cookie sheet from oven and create a hole in the center of each cookie (using your thumb, if you do not mind burns, or an object of similar size). Fill the hole with raspberry jam. Return the cookie sheet to the oven and continue baking for 5-7 minutes.

Remove from the oven. Let them cool. Place them on holiday plates and drizzle powdered sugar on top. Beautiful, festive, and delicious!

Tumbledown Farm