Thinking of getting a warre

[oliver90owner]

There are other advantages and alterations to the original Warre system.

Boxes are thicker walled for a start

One can reduce the inter-box comb building by using frames with bottom bars and the usual bee space between frames.

Doubtless a few other mods, if one thinks about bit carefully.

Going back to the original topic - one needs these side inspection doors on all the boxes used, not just the top box. Do they really tell the observer that much, other than comb has been buil to at that level?

 

[Finman]

I'm curious - how are your hives configured? Langstroth with 3 brood boxes and a mountain of supers on top? That sounds like an enormous hive to me!

It is.
Couple of years ago I had a hive which had 5 langstroth boxes + 3 medium boxes. It brought 170 kg honey and drew 3 boxes foundations.

Best week was 50 kg honey in 7 days.

But what happened then.... varroa killed the colony 1 month later. Mites consentared into winter brood and that was the end.

Greetings to all "Do Nothing Beeks".

 

[Finman]

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And here is 3 years lasted research, how much bees consume honey in comb making.

Part of honey goes into wax exreceting and part goes to construction work of cells.

It seems that compared to 90% yield, bees consume more to make foundations 30% and making cells to foundation takes 20% of yield.

Many say that when bees do their natural foundation, it does not need much honey. But this rersearch tells that without foudation comb building is much more expencive than making cell walls in foundations.
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[ugcheleuce]

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And here is 3 years lasted research, how much bees consume honey in comb making.

I do not have the full article to double-check what you're saying (Szabo, T.I. 1983. Effect of various combs on the development and weight gain of honeybee colonies. Journal of Apicultural Research 22(1): 45-48.), so I can base my comments only on the publicly available abstract (which you quoted in full, in a different thread).

The graph that you posted looks ominous, but a little context is needed.

Firstly, the study did not actually study the amount of honey needed to build combs, but rather the amount of surplus honey that these hives could produce in a single summer. It is tempting, I know, to say that there is a direct correlation between these two things.

Secondly, this graph relates to honey production of package bees (shook swarms), not overwintered colonies. Not surprisingly, package bees that started with only strips yielded much less honey during the summer than package bees that started with foundation or drawn comb.

Certainly, if a shook swarm is given drawn comb, their queen can start laying immediately.

==

Nectar is 20% sugar (80% water). 1:1 syrup is 50% sugar. I assume (but it is a wild assumption) that bees could build 2.5 times as much comb from 1:1 syrup than from nectar.

I don't know if the bees in the Alberta study were fed sugar syrup in spring (or whether Alberta actually has a spring that can sustain non-overwintering bees).

It may come as an unpleasant surprise to some die-hard Warre-ists to learn that Mr Warre himself advocated both autumn feeding (using a deep feeder on top of the hive) and spring and summer feeding (using a shallow feeder at the bottom of the hive).

Taken together, this information suggests that the amount of honey loss in a Warre hive would not be in the same region as that of a package colony that starts with strips alone at the beginning of summer flow... if you feed them sugar syrup at strategic times.

 

[pargyle]

Despite all that (and I agree that Finman's posts do not bear relevance in places and are at best selective with their quotes) the fact remains that there are better hive systems available than the Warre system ..

As you know, I am one for experimentation and am very open minded about trying different things and ideas but ... I reckon if Abbe Warre had been around now he would be working with framed hives and standard boxes of some sort or another. His whole premise was that his hive would be one that was available to anyone who wanted to keep bees and would be as cheap and accessible as possible - But you have to take it in the context of the era when he was developing his hives .. Born in 1867 he would have possibly seen the Langstroth hive (patented 1852) but with the Langstroth system already patented and with the difficulty his target market would have trying to make frames you can see why he ended up with a frameless system, which over the years, has proved to be less than ideal. As Finman also points out .. modern strains of bees are also more prolific and need more space than the Warre provides .. I accept that the bees can use more than one box for brood but the small size of the Warre is a real disadvantage as you can end up with bees brood over three or even four boxes - which may explain why you see some huge stacks of warre hives.

Not a great hive system in my humble opinion.

 

[Finman]

I do not have the full article to double-check what you're saying (Szabo, T.I. 1983. Effect of various combs on the development and weight gain of honeybee colonies. Journal of Apicultural Research 22(1): 45-48.), so I can base my comments only on the publicly available abstract (which you quoted in full, in a different thread).

The graph that you posted looks ominous, but a little context is needed.

Firstly, the study did not actually study the amount of honey needed to build combs, but rather the amount of surplus honey that these hives could produce in a single summer. It is tempting, I know, to say that there is a direct correlation between these two things.

Secondly, this graph relates to honey production of package bees (shook swarms), not overwintered colonies. Not surprisingly, package bees that started with only strips yielded much less honey during the summer than package bees that started with foundation or drawn comb.

Certainly, if a shook swarm is given drawn comb, their queen can start laying immediately.

==

Nectar is 20% sugar (80% water). 1:1 syrup is 50% sugar. I assume (but it is a wild assumption) that bees could build 2.5 times as much comb from 1:1 syrup than from nectar.

I don't know if the bees in the Alberta study were fed sugar syrup in spring (or whether Alberta actually has a spring that can sustain non-overwintering bees).

It may come as an unpleasant surprise to some die-hard Warre-ists to learn that Mr Warre himself advocated both autumn feeding (using a deep feeder on top of the hive) and spring and summer feeding (using a shallow feeder at the bottom of the hive).

Taken together, this information suggests that the amount of honey loss in a Warre hive would not be in the same region as that of a package colony that starts with strips alone at the beginning of summer flow... if you feed them sugar syrup at strategic times.

You really have weak knowledge about beekeeping.

And from picture link you could see, where it comes from.

I can say, that all natural beekeepers have denied this research, and they use to deny all other unpleasant researches too.



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[Finman]

Tupla



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[Finman]

... if you feed them sugar syrup at strategic times.

That is real natural beekeeping!

Strategic times.... What heck

A little bit beehive biology dies not make bad to you.

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[ugcheleuce]

You really have weak knowledge about beekeeping.

You are, of course, welcome to point out specific parts of my post.

And from picture link you could see, where it comes from.

Yes, yes, but that's not what I mean. The picture is from Allan Dick's web site, and he got it from Tibor Szabo's 1983 publication about the 1970's study in Alberta. I don't have access to the full information about the study, and Allan doesn't answer the relevant questions on his web site.

I can say, that all natural beekeepers have denied this research, and they use to deny all other unpleasant researches too.

I agree that many "natural" beekeepers ignore or deny information learnt from scientific studies, but even us non-natural beekeepers should make sure we read the studies right.

If I understand Tibor's study correctly, not using drawn-out comb will cause a 2/3 reduction and not using foundation will cause a 1/3 reduction in the summer yield of surplus honey in late-spring shook swarms that were not fed any sugar syrup.

That can be no surprise to anyone.

The original purpose of Tibor's study, it seems to me, was to determine whether package bees will yield less honey than overwintered bees. Again, that's just a guess, because the abstract of Tibor's study doesn't actually say what the reason for the study was.

 

[Finman]

Y


The original purpose of Tibor's study, it seems to me, was to determine whether package bees will yield less honey than overwintered bees.

That was not he case. Of course wintered colony makes more honey. Because the hiove has brood allready and it expands soon. And experienced beekeepers know that. Package hive takes 4-5 weeks that it starts to expand.

But I think that they wanted facts, how good business package bees are to buy in spring. Alaksa kill hives in August and by new bees in April, and they say that it is good business (to whom)

And finally they saw that they do not get their money back during summer, even if the yield is good.

One fact too, that many let bees to draw combs without foundations. They wanted facts, how much it means in money.

Finally they calculated in different cases, how much each method gives final profit when costs have taken away from selling prices.


And when we look professional beekeeper's prices now in Canada, it is not much.
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[Finman]

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You say that they did not do that and that 30 years ago. You may do your own arrangemets and seek answers to your research theory. Just put 60 hives in research during 3 years and go for it.

 

[Finman]

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http://thebeespace.net/warre-hive/

This is said about warre: "The cost is about one-third to one-fourth the cost of one standard ten frame Langstroth hive. A Warre (pronounced war-ray) hive is simple to manage and maintain."

Amen
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[ugcheleuce]

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You say that they did not do that and that 30 years ago.

No, I'm not saying that the "did not do that". What I'm saying is that "I don't know what they did". And unless you have access to the full description of the study (as opposed to just the abstract), then neither do you.

Anyway, you seem to forget that I agree with most of what you said in this thread.

 

[ugcheleuce]

.This is said about warre: "The cost is about one-third to one-fourth the cost of one standard ten frame Langstroth hive. A Warre (pronounced war-ray) hive is simple to manage and maintain."

The claim that Finman quotes here is repeated on many, many Warre web sites, but usually with no citation or reference as to what this "cost" would entail, or how it was calculated.

==

The only such calculation that I'm aware of, was one that was done by Frèrès and Guillaume, who wrote a book about Warre-style beekeeping, in which they refer to it as the "Ecological Hive". The cost analysis is titled Cost comparison of honey production in frame and Warré ecological hives for 5 hives over 10 years.

The cost analysis includes many items for Langstroth hives that are not really necessary for Langstroth hives, and omits items for Warre hives that one would probably need for Warre hives, but it's a good starting point. They claim that a Langstroth hive yields 20 kg of honey and a Warre hive yields 12 kg of honey, but that the cost of producing one kilogram of honey is half as expensive in the Warre hive.

They assume, for example, that the Langstroth beekeeper will use an extractor, and that he will buy his own extractor, and that a Warre beekeeper will harvest honey by simply letting it flow out of the comb.

One thing that adds to the cost, is the cost of time. They calculate how long the various beekeeping activities take, and then multiply that by an hourly rate. This is a good idea, for commercial beekeeping purposes, but for hobbyists, time spent with the bees isn't worth money.

They also assume that the Warre hive will swarm naturally, and that it is a good thing, and that you'll be able to capture the swarm. They assume that the Warre beekeeper will not create nucs to overwinter, but that the Langstroth beekeeper will.

Etc, etc. A good starting point, but not really objective.

 

[bpmurray]

I started this discussion with a question which is well and truly answered now. However, I feel compelled to point out that the reason for getting this is to better understand bees and because the hive looks rather nice. I also like the idea of having windows - any guests will definitely be interested in seeing what goes on inside. I certainly didn't expect the furore!

 

[Finman]

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The most important in warre system is, that you cannot breed the bee stock and you cannot change the queen.

Breeding and selecting queens is the basic of all beekeeping.

150 y old beekeeping system and nothing else.

If you have a mad hive you have a mad hive. If you have a deadly dangerous hive, no one can quarantee what happens.
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[ugcheleuce]

The reason for getting this is to better understand bees and because the hive looks rather nice. I also like the idea of having windows - any guests will definitely be interested in seeing what goes on inside.

Those are certainly valid points, and with the windows, your guests will be able to see into the hive without you having to put on special clothes.

However, if you don't mind putting on your bee suit and preparing the smoker while your guests wait, you can give them a much more spectacular show (which I think they'll appreciate more) by being able to pull out a frame with live bees on it, walking over to them with it, and allowing them to ooh and aah, looking at the frame of bees closely while being far away from the dangerous hive. Just a thought.

Also, if you use a transparent plastic crown board (stiff perspex or just flexible plastic foil), you can take off the lid and let your guests look at the bees through the crown board, without the need for smoke or beekeeping clothes.

I think you'll learn a lot more about bees if you use a framed hive, because you'll be able to see what the combs actually look like in the hive. You can then also experiment by e.g. destroying portions of the comb and seeing what they do to that comb a day or two later. Very educational.

I certainly didn't expect the furore!

There is no furore. But ten beekeepers will have twelve opinions.

 

[Finman]

I also like the idea of having windows - any guests will definitely be interested in seeing what goes on inside.!

Actually you will see nothing there. Bees walk here and there and that is all.

 

[drex]

I started this discussion with a question which is well and truly answered now. However, I feel compelled to point out that the reason for getting this is to better understand bees and because the hive looks rather nice. I also like the idea of having windows - any guests will definitely be interested in seeing what goes on inside. I certainly didn't expect the furore!

As to my reply about the window in my TBH, I doubt whether you will be that impressed with the observation Windows. But certainly go for the warre. It will involve a different mindset and also skills. I really would consider castellations for the top bars, helps enormously, if you want to remove comb. I just use a long bread knife in mine and my tbh's to sever any attachments. Have fun

 

[Finman]

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here is one choice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbbYnfnPiX0