Gold Star Honeybees
Gold Star Honeybees was started in 2007 in Maine by Christy Hemenway and stayed narrow on purpose: top bar hives for foundationless, natural comb beekeeping. The hives are cut from sustainably harvested cypress and made in Maine. A Deluxe kit ships with 30 top bars, two follower boards, 20 spacers and a 4 by 36 inch glass observation window, and it goes together with a Philips screwdriver and a staple gun. Hemenway also wrote "The Thinking Beekeeper" and "Advanced Top Bar Beekeeping", and the company has taught weekend intensive classes on the method.
Best fit for backyard keepers who want to inspect one bar at a time, skip heavy lifting and let bees build their own wax. Wrong fit for anyone planning to trade frames with Langstroth neighbors or scale up for volume honey, since top bar equipment does not interchange with standard frames and yields are usually lower.
Pros
- Top bar hives made in Maine from cypress
- Glass observation window 4 by 36 inches
- Assembly needs only screwdriver and stapler
- Founder wrote two top bar beekeeping books
- Foundationless setup, bees build own wax
- Narrow focus, deep knowledge of the method
Cons
- No Langstroth gear, no frame interchange
- Top bar honey yields usually lower
- Very small product range
- Domain change caused link confusion
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