The Open Source Beehives project is a collaborative response to the threat faced by bee populations around the world. The project proposes to design hives that can support bee colonies in a sustainable way and to monitor and track the health and behaviour of a colony as it develops.
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The CTB Top Bar 5.4 is designed to be produced using a CNC router. It can be made from a single sheet of wood of the standard dimensions 1220 x 2440. This is the fifth prototype of this design type and is currently being tested in Six countries and four continents around the world.
A top-bar hive is a single-storey frameless bee hive in which the comb hangs from removeable bars. Hives that have frames or that use honey chambers in summer but which use similar management principles as regular top-bar hives are sometimes also referred to as top-bar hives. Top-bar hives are rectangular in shape and are typically more than twice as wide as multi-storey framed hives commonly found in English speaking countries. Top-bar hives are usually not portable, and allow beekeeping methods that interfere very little with the colony.