Yes Top Bars are good but I do not like them because.
Basically there is no difference between Crop and brood.
I do not feel that is this country top bars can work as well as nationals or other standardised hives. How are you going to feed your bees in winter in a top bar? Stop mice getting in?
Well, I have been keeping bees in top bar hives for nearly a decade. Have you tried them, or are your objections purely theoretical?
Feeding is not a problem; neither are mice.
In a standard National you can crop your honey with out disturbing the nucleus (Brood Box) of the hive.
With a Top Bar it has a solid floor. How in this day and age are you going to control varroa in a top bar hive?
There is much less disturbance to bees in a TBH, as anyone who uses them will tell you. Honey is harvested from the end furthest from the brood nest.
Varroa treatment is done - when necessary - with powdered sugar.
My TBHs have mesh floors. One of them has no floor at all
I am sorry but there is a h*ll allot to learn about bees before you "catch or bait a swarm and you are a beekeeper!"
Of course there is always a lot to learn - I learn something every time I visit my bees, and I study books constantly - but there is an unnecessary air of 'mystery' about beekeeping, and almost anyone can do it if they want to. It does not have to involve an outlay of hundreds of pounds on machine-made equipment, and while there are benefits in learning from experienced beekeepers, most of them have only handled one type of hive and simply do not understand how bees behave naturally when given a simple, log-like container, because they have never tried it themselves. It is too easy to get stuck in the standard, BBKA way of doing things and not look 'outside the box' - in a very literal sense - and miss what is going on outside the local association.
What I am saying is - beekeeping can be really simple - just provide the bees with suitable accommodation and observe them. If you learn to listen, they will tell you what they need. And it is not foundation, frames or chemicals!