Product Description
For years, I was pretty much against hinging the lid on a top bar hive. For a number of reasons. One was that if you do a lot of hive-side teaching or mentoring, having the lid attached to the hive meant it was often in the way of being able to show beekeepers what was going on in the hive. Another reason was that it makes the hive quite top heavy when it is open. I mean, how heartbreaking would it be to have the wind catch the lid and either pull the entire hive over, or slam the lid shut on YOU in mid-inspection!? Angry bees and broken comb and upset beekeepers all over! And yet another reason was that, well, it just looks sort of kloogy.
But it’s handy to be able to do it, and I’ve done a little kibbitzing recently about the challenges of beekeeping by people who aren’t able to lift the lid off easily, and my hive kit builder, Nick (great guy, that Nick) wanted to help out with making it possible to hinge the lid on the Gold Star top bar hive, because maybe that would make some things a little easier for folks. Or maybe it would just be a thing that some people preferred!
So we brought you this gadget, and we hope it helps. Here are the installation instructions.
Please Note: This was designed and tested for installation on a Gold Star top bar hive. So long as all the angles work, it seems feasible that it should work on any trapezoidal (slant-sided) hive, but we have not had an opportunity to do any testing on other top bar hives, so if you try it - let us know your results!
