Top-bar beehives have been in use for millennia from the arid African climate to the frozen waters of the Vikings. Even with all of today’s modern ingenuities the top-bar hive is still the number one hive in use today throughout the world. Their secret is the simplicity of the design, making them both elegant and affordable to build yet versatile enough to be used for everything from backyard garden pollination and home honey production to commercial-scale crop pollination. Top-bar hives are easy to build, requiring only basic carpentry skills and tools and once built, require no fancy equipment or tools to operate or add onto the hive. With top-bar hives, bees build their own combs from just thick wood strips called top bars. There are no frames to buy and you don’t need an expensive extractor to get the honey out. In this class we will cover building 2 types of top-bar hives, the horizontal top bar hive, also called the Kenyan Hive and the vertical top bar hive called the Warre’ Hive. We will discuss the pros and cons of both styles. Everyone in the class will construct a Warre’ hive, though interested students may make arrangements to build a Kenyan hive with prior notice.