Api Culture in Bangladesh

A growing number of amateur beekeepers are adopting various top-bar hives similar to the type commonly found in Africa. Top bar hives were originally used as traditional beekeeping a method in both Greece and Vietnam.^[11] These have no frames and the honey-filled comb is not returned to the hive after extraction, as it is in the Langstroth hive. Because of this, the production of honey is likely to be somewhat less than that of a Langstroth hive. Top bar hives are mostly kept by people who are more interested in having bees in their garden than in honey production per se.

Some of the most well known top-bar hives are the Kenyan Top Bar Hive with sloping sides, the Tanzanian Top Bar Hive, which has straight sides and the Vertical Top Bar Hives such as the Warre or "People's Hive" designed by Abbe Warre in the mid-1900s.

The initial costs and equipment requirements are far lower. Often scrap wood or #2 or #3 pine is able to be used with a nice hive as the outcome. Top-bar hives also offer some advantages in interacting with the bees and the amount of weight that must be lifted is greatly reduced. Top-bar hives are being widely used in developing countries in Africa and Asia as a result of the Bees for Development program. There are a growing number of beekeepers in the U.S. using various top-bar hives from 2011 onwards.^[20]