Wyatt A. Mangum (Ph.D.) is an internationally-known, top-bar hive beekeeper. His long career began at age 10, starting with frame hives. By the time he was in high school, he had 125 frame hives and was producing honey by the ton. In 1986, this life-long beekeeper had switched to top-bar hives long before most other beekeepers knew about them.
A monthly columnist for the American Bee Journal on Honey Bee Biology, Dr. Mangum is a highly sought-after speaker for bee meetings across the US, and a world traveler, working with beekeeping systems in India, Bangladesh, Bolivia, South Africa, Thailand, and Brazil.
However for his own bees, Dr. Mangum built a 200 top-bar hive operation and saw the bees through the terrible years when varroa and tracheal mites first came to America. For 10 years, he moved by himself 200 top-bar hives (weighing conservatively about 8 tons) to pollinate cucumber fields in North Carolina.
As an Apicultural Historian, that perspective helps to avoid repeating past mistakes in designing beekeeping equipment and keeps the top-bar hive equipment practical.
His scientific approach, observing how bees use equipment in observation hives (for example syrup feeders), makes sure the new equipment works from the bees’ perspective.
Dr. Mangum is also a specialist in the photography of bee behavior under difficult or delicate conditions, a talent brought to his book to produce the many rarely seen pictures. He worked out the technical aspects of using game cameras in apiaries to photograph nocturnal wildlife around the hives. The most stunning pictures are in his book Top-Bar Hive Beekeeping: Wisdom and Pleasure Combined.