Warre Hive

[wood blewit]

Been reading a lot about this kinda hive lately, and as honey collection is not my prime reason for beeking i feel this hive is a more beneficial and natural way of life for my bees much closer to how wild bees live. But,,, are there any fors and against i should know about from you more experienced keepers before making a change ??

 

[Midland Beek]

Are you really expecting someone to answer your question in a few sentences?

 

[Tom Bick]

Have you considered running your nationals in a similar way to a warre hive. The size will be larger but if you don't use foundation and no queen excluder it would be very similar with the added advantage possible to inspect providing you use the frames. I don't like the leave alone concept of the warre hive and feel that I would still need to inspect.

 

[drex]

We keep bees in boxes and give the boxes different names. That need not have anything to do with the way I manage the bees in my boxes. I have mainly nationals but also ktbh and warre. I have castellations in my warre. Ok, I do not remove these bars in the warre as often as I will frames in my nationals, but still can if needed. Just different set of skills needed in managing a frameless hive, as well as the "normal" skills. Personally I get the least enjoyment out of the warre.

 

[Dishmop]

I used to have Warre hives and the only advantage is that the boxes are easier to make.
After a while I modified some national frames to fit in boxes, and then came to the conclusion that making national boxes was easier than modifying frames.
Warre is any easy way to start but if you are only using a top bar you cant really inspect properly.
If you like the Warre principle of adding new boxes underneath instead of on top, you can follow that method with national deep boxes.

 

[Chris B]

The Warre hive was designed by a commercial beekeeper for the express purpose of producing honey for modest capital outlay. It's not a bad system in my view if you look into it's origins. It was called "The People's Hive" revealing the inventors primary objective was not simply a natural home for bees. Having kept bees in them alongside Langstroths I didn't see any health benefits to the bees over and above anything else. I like them though.

 

[madasafish]

I found getting bees to move into another box was really difficult in our local microclimate and managed it once in 4 years - last year...

 

[ugcheleuce]

Been reading a lot about this kinda hive lately, and as honey collection is not my prime reason for beeking, I feel this hive is a more beneficial and natural way of life for my bees much closer to how wild bees live.

The important thing to realise is that there is Classic Warréism and there is Modern Warréism. The classic one is if you base your beekeeping mostly on Warré's book. The modern one is if you follow the "Warré is natural" crowd that implements only the subset of Warré's book that is "more natural" and combines it with beliefs and practices from other hive systems that claim to be "more natural".

Warré did not set out to create a hive that is "more natural" but which is "more economical" (i.e. least input costs for the greatest yield).

Just my opinion (non-Warréist)

 

[wood blewit]

Thank you very much for your input I think what I have gleaned from this is that I can get the same experience using my national hive along the same lines as a warre i.e. foundation less but I have the added advantage that I can still inspect.
Ta very much and watch this space

 

[AugustC]

People are right. Try not to get to hung up on the box and consider more the management. The Warre hive can be used with the Warre management process (is designed for it) but it can be managed in much the same way as conventional hive too. Using half frames or frames, ans supering.
Equally, your nationals can be managed using Warre style management.
Steps:
Use two dummy boards to help narrow the space and reduce the weight.
Go foundationless, use a thin starters strip in the top of the frame.
Provide the bees with two national broods to live.
Nadir (place underneath) boxes through spring allowing the bees to grow down.
If they fill the boxes remove the boxes from the top in the autumn leaving two to over winter.
The biggest issue is going to be the weight. Warres hives are usually made with a handle on each side and routinely people will use a lift in order to lift all the boxes in one go to nadir.
See how it goes with using Warre management for your nationals and if it goes well and you want to go to Warre hives.


http://augustcottageapiary.wordpress.com/

 

[steve1958]

One big difference is to do with levels of warmth within the Hive.
A warre Hive with solid floor that is left to grow without the Beekeeper keep inspecting it will have a constant heat inside.

I would like to think that this is warm enough for the Bees, and perhaps too warm for Varroa to enjoy