A Complete Top Bar Hive Book

We are still shipping books in 2024 given the continued interest in top bar hives.

Top Bar Hive Book Description

This book contains  what you need for a completely sustainable Top Bar Hive beekeeping system. The results rest on scientific principles and careful observations from managing 200 Top Bar Hives with over 25 years experience.

This is sustainable beekeeping with Integrated Pest Management practices (IPM), the bees rarely if ever needing chemical treatments.

With 12 chapters and 421 pages, this full-sized (8 1/2″ by 11″)  book gives you 362 color and 24 infrared (B&W) photos, a rich visual learning experience. This ultimate Top Bar Hive book is full of innovative & creative beekeeping and rock-solid fundamentals, such as:

• Build TBHs hives 3, 4 or 5 feet long
  

  A Top Bar Comb (growing straight with honey)

• Build syrup feeders, queen cages, pollen traps, and queen excluders for TBHs
• Build TBHs for free from scrap material and plant stalks
• Install bee packages the right way
• Correctly use syrup feeders
• Get consistently straight combs
• Handle new combs – correctly!
• Get the new colony established
• Pick the correct hive site
• Prevent robbing
• Get your new top bar colony ready for winter
  

  Cut Comb Honey (backlit)

Then for the next season, this book discusses in detail with more photographs:

•  Colony Management:
  • honey production, see two years of actual honey production
  • swarm control,
  • requeening,
  • IPM for varroa, small hive beetle & wax moths,
  • selecting hygienic bee stock,
  • comb storage without fumigants
• Honey “processing” with high sanitary standards required by today’s consumers
• Learn about creative honey packaging–all with no expensive extractor
• Queen production: small or large scale (nongrafting or grafting) with all equipment for TBHs
  

  Straining Honey

• Pollination: moving a few top bar hives or dozens by truck and trailer
• Shake package bees from top bar hives, easier than you might think

Intrigued with bee behavior?

• Watch bees with top bar observation hives
• See 30 top bar observation hives in one building

Video Book Tour of Top Bar Hive Beekeeping:  Wisdom & Pleasure Combined

This book is very detailed, but that might be hard to appreciate from the lists above.

So here is a Video Book Tour showing a brief 12-minute summary of me paging thorough the book narrating some of the main points.  The video is like looking through the book with me (the author) narrating.

See more about top hives:  The links at the top of this page give supplemental top-bar information to the book or just important information for all beekeepers, top bar and frame hive beekeepers.

Book Price

From decades of beekeeping work, the book is yours for only $45.00.  Virginia residents must be charged 5.3% sales tax, that is, $2.39 for each book.

Buying the Book By Clicking Below, Shipping in the USA

In the USA, the books are shipped by USPS media mail for $8.75 for a single book with delivery confirmation.  (Delivery confirmation provides the sender with a tracking number.)  We have a small price break on the shipping for purchasing multiple books.  You can pay by credit card or debit card or use your PayPal account with the button below.  See below for how I pack the book for domestic shipping.

You do NOT need a PayPal account.  After clicking the “Buy Now” the next screen is slightly different depending on your computer or mobile device, but what you tell PayPal is the same.  Most people use a credit card.  One kind of screen has a credit card tab that you click, which opens up for putting that information.  Another screen for older computers lets you sign in as a “PayPal guest,” putting in the same information.  An older screen format has in the lower right, “Don’t have a PayPal account?”  Click those words and put in your credit card information.  In all of those screen types, PayPal handles the transfer of funds, and PayPal handles the security.  For orders of 5 or more books, please contact us with the e-mail form below before purchasing to get the correct shipping charge.  Thank you.

Buy the book Top Bar Hive Beekeeping:  Wisdom & Pleasure Combined by W.A. Mangum:

Buying the Book with the Address Below, Shipping in the USA

For buying ONE book with a shipping Address in the United States, you can use the P.O. Box address below.  Please follow these directions:

You can send a check.  Or you can send a money order, but only send a United States money order, which you can buy at a US post office.  Know that other money orders could be counterfeit, and I cannot accept them.

The amount for one book is $54.39 (US dollars) (which has to include Virginia sales tax because the transaction occurs in Virginia).

Make the check or US money order out to Wyatt Mangum.

Please print your return address neatly so I can read it.  Please make sure your address is correct.  With Paypal, the post office computer would check your address, but not this way using the P.O. Box address below.  For example, I have had people give their current address, but out of habit incorrectly include an old zip code.

Please include your email address.  I will email you the tracking number that I use for the delivery confirmation as is done with Paypal.  If you do not have an email account, try using an email address of a relative or a friend for a contact.

If you want more than one book (using the payment address below), first send me an email using the contact form near the bottom of this page.  Tell me how many books you want and your shipping address.  I will work out the shipping options and the costs.

The payment address for buying One book, shipped in the USA, is

Dr. Wyatt Mangum

P. O. Box 903

Bowling Green, VA

22427

Buying the Book with International Shipping  (out of the USA)

For international shipping, USPS Priority Flat Rate has been increasing.  I have NOT increased shipping since Jan. 27, 2013, taking some LOSS myself on four of their price increases. But I cannot do that anymore with the more recent shipping increases.  Shipping one book to all countries outside of the USA is $43 (USD). I know the shipping is expensive, but the rates are beyond my control.  These TBH books shipped internationally go by air mail, which depends on fuel costs.

I will send you a tracking number after I fill out all the forms.  I do not know the tracking number until after I ship.  In the Paypal set up, I picked 1-2 weeks for the delivery time, but the delivery times have been much faster than that.  My choices in Paypal were limited.  From the emails I received from buyers, the TBH book gets to the United Kingdom in about 5 days, Greece in a week, Belgium in 8 days, and New Zealand in 10 days.  I have had virtually no trouble shipping the book internationally.  See below for how I pack the book for international shipping with the special envelope.

Note:  International shipping with USPS Priority has worked very well.  Some of the countries we have shipped to are Abu Dhabi, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, French Polynesia, Great Britain, Gambia West Africa, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, Senegal, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom.

You can pay by credit card or use your PayPal account with the button below.  You do NOT need a PayPal account.  After clicking the “Buy Now”below  the next screen is slightly different depending on your computer or mobile device, but what you tell PayPal is the same.  Most people use a credit card.  One kind of screen has a credit card tab that you click, which opens up for putting that information.  Another screen for older computers lets you sign in as a “PayPal guest,” putting in the same information.  An older screen format has in the lower right, “Don’t have a PayPal account?”  Click those words and put in your credit card information.  In all of those screen types, PayPal handles the transfer of funds, and PayPal handles the security.

For shipping 2 or more books, contact me using the form below and tell your country.  I will give you the shipping amount.  The paypal shipping calculator will not be correct.  Thank you.

For packing books, all books are first protected in a heavy-duty plastic bag, which is taped closed.

Below is the packing for books shipped in the United Stated.  I clear tape over the addresses so rain water cannot smear them.

Below is the packing for books shipped to other countries, but with address labels and customs forms included. I clear tape over the addresses so water cannot smear them.  A plastic pouch is attached with several custom forms, which various officials remove along the way.  This plastic pouch may be empty when your book arrives after the copies are taken.

Above is my old bee truck that I had for 22 years.  Below is my new bee truck with BEES! on the sides.  I have almost finished fitting it out for all the bee work in my apiaries.  In the picture below, I am loading empty hives with new top bars and foundation comb strips, which result in exceptionally straight combs.

A rear view of the hives with new top bars and foundation strips.  I turned some of the top bars over to show their foundation strips.  The directions for installing the foundation strips are in my top bar hive book.  Note the shallow tool box letting the top bar hives slide under it.