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My new Warre and busy girls

27K views 45 replies 9 participants last post by  JConnolly 
#1 · (Edited)
Two years ago I cut out all the parts for a Warre (except frames) but didn't assemble it. It's been stored flat in my shop since then. Normally I use Langstroth Hives. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to get into different equipment or not.

About two weeks ago I agreed to take two unwanted packages of bees. This created a problem in that I had gear for only one more Langstroth hive. I waffled for a week on whether to assemble the Warre instead of building another langstroth.

Sunday I put it together and built frames with triangular comb guides (my state requires frames) That was a PITA and I was wondering it if was worth the work. From now on I'm buying store bought Langstroth frames and cutting them down.

Here it is, all put together and finished.




The bees went in on Yesterday morning, but got a piece of plywood for a temporary lid as I didn't have the Warre top assembled yet. I went ahead and released the queen since I marked her and she had already been with the bees several days in the package. I finished the top this afternoon and so when I installed it I just had to take a peek. The bees have been busy. There are two frames about like this one, two more that have about half as much, and they are holding meetings and measuring on another frame (AKA hanging with legs linked and starting to build) Not bad for a day and a half. It looks like they got the right idea from triangular guides I cut on the frames, so maybe it was worth it after all. I didn't look in the bottom box yet. That comb is still pretty fragile so I didn't get very invasive.



I've got a bunch of jar feeders in that third box right now, otherwise it would be just two boxes. In a few days I'll take them off.

edited to fix broken image links
 
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#27 ·
JC
Msl posted a really neat picture of how he just took a peice of comb with the right age larva and stuck it on a schiskabob type stick and put it down between the top bars for the bees to build queen cells on. I bet you have a queen though. My warre finally died end of winter. It was my only hive that did not build up durring summer or make it till spring. I let the other hives rob it of the tiny bit of stores it had left and put some lemon grass oil in it and I will see how my season goes on whether I fill it again.
Good luck
gww
 
#29 ·
D'oh. :doh:

MSL, GWW, thanks for posting.

All I was thinking of in the excitement of the moment was how I was going to transfer a Langstroth frame of eggs if I didn't get the queen. I didn't even think of moving a warre frame to a Lang to get some eggs in it if I needed to.

I've never tried OAD, I understand its pretty rough on the bees. Since I'm back in the Warre I may need to just make sure I build something so I can OAV it. My Warre bottom board is the traditional design, so I'm going to need a shim or something or just change to a different bottom board.
 
#31 ·
You warre has frames! so much easier then lol
I've never tried OAD, I understand its pretty rough on the bees
Marketing, there are places in the world were it is used 8x a year in commercial yards
the much sited study a says in the abstract
All three methods could give high varroa mortality, c. 93–95%, using 2.25 g OA per colony. However, sublimation was superior as it gave higher mortality at lower doses (.56 or 1.125 g per colony: trickling 20, 57% mortality; spraying 25, 86%; sublimation 81, 97%.). Sublimation using 2.25 g of OA also resulted in 3 and 12 times less worker bee mortality in the 10 days after application than either trickling or spraying, respectively
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00218839.2015.1106777

3x bee mortality sounds realty bad for OAD, but when your read the study past the abstract(witch many didn't) you see OAV killed 9 bees over 10 days and OAD killed 24 bees and the study says
Across all doses, sublimation gave mortality rates of .8–1.8 bees per day, similar to the control. Trickling at all three doses and spraying at the two lowest doses also gave rates similar to the control
now if you start running a course of treatments you might have issues, but as a treatment a few times a year OAD is no problem and is the more common treatment in other parts of the world
but if OAV is your goto, for sure make a new bottom board
 
#33 ·
I ask, because Torben Schiffer of the Tautz Group University of Würzburg has shown us pictures of the intestines of the bees, if they have removed mold and have taken up the pathogens with their mouthparts, the intestines are changed (perhaps that is why Nosema occurs so often despite cleansing flights)
The Tautz Group has also found that bees do not use condensation in the hive because it is demineralized. They always fly to the outside.
 
#34 ·
That's BS member JSL's aka Joe Latshaw pict taken from the linked article he wrote for BC, you are seeing the edge of a poly nuc were it wasn't painted.
 
#38 ·
Thirteen day update on the swarm I put in the Warre.

The girls got right to work. They've drawn out 3/4 of both the top and bottom box.

My concerns about the queen were unfounded, there were four frames of brood in the top box. I didn't lift frames from the bottom box, just lifted it off the bottom board and peeked at the bottom side.
 

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#42 ·
Just did a 21 day on my package. I had a die out this winter and had everything for this hive; drawn comb, capped honey, pollen. I'm running Carnies and she is exploding. Out side two frames in top box are now capped honey and the remainder capped brood. She was down in the 2nd box I added half open frames last week laying eggs and capped brood there as well. The girls had pulled most of the open frames so added a third box checkerboard empty and pulled frames. Add the 3ed box sooner than I wanted but being a Carnie hive got to give those gals something to do. Running robber screen and low temps only in the low 60 so with all that capped hatching soon they should be fine.
 
#43 · (Edited)
Update on how my second round with a Warre is doing.

The colony is now in four boxes. I was hoping I wouldn't need a fourth box since I originally only built three boxes when I started this experiment. This colony had other ideas.

Here's some pictures.
 

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#44 ·
I want to get out of the Warre just because it isn't compatible with my Langstroth gear. It started as a curiosity experiment. Curiosity satisfied. I think the Warre is a fine hive, but Langstroths are the standard.

I'm thinking ahead on how I might vacate the Warre. This is a really good queen and these bees are incredibly gentle. My thoughts are to winter this colony in three boxes. If it survives then in the spring I'll make a shook swarm into a Langstroth hive on new foundation. I'll take the brood topbar/frames and zip tie them inside an empty Langstroth frame. I tried it already and they just barely fit. Then I'll put one each in a Barnyard Bees style mini-mating nuc with some bees and let them raise queens. I'll harvest any left over honey and render the wax. I'm open to other suggestions on how to discontinue the Warre.
 
#45 ·
A miny mating nuc makes a poor cell builder.
I would fly back spit in to the lang, and then once the cells are capped break in to the minys.

another thought would be to make a adapter(pice of ply the size of a lang migratory cover with a warre sized hole in the middle) to put the warre on top of a lang over an excluder and let all the brood hatch out
 
#46 ·
Good point. Getting a head of myself here. I think instead of a flyback split I'll make up a cell starter (I've already a screened in nuc for cell starters) and then a cell builder, but I can still use the Warre brood zip tied into an empty Langstrogth deep frame.
 
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