Comments on: Moving the Warré beehives

By: milkwoodkirsten

milkwoodkirsten — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 00:03:59 +0000

We’re actually building a little forklift like thing for nadiring the boxes this season, but this job was a one-off, we won’t be moving full hives again!

By: Jenny

Jenny — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:44:28 +0000

Yes, it can be really heavy. I think I’ll take the advice of one of the commenters above, and hire a forklift.

By: maid

maid — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:58:16 +0000

How do they move hundreds of hives (in the middle of the night – on the back of semi) to the middle of Almond plantations without disturbing them or / and with success of them actually polinating and returning to their hives….?

By: Liesel

Liesel — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 23:22:44 +0000

Interesting about the native bees having different building styles. Will have to rethink where to put a hive. Ta.

By: milkwoodkirsten

milkwoodkirsten — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 22:32:30 +0000

Yep you are right, they can be heavy! Generally, if we are harvesting, we’re also nadiring, so we take honey off the top, then nadir beneath. The exception to this would be in late spring on a honeyflow. Sometimes, if we’re doing a hive check, we nadir at that point, while some of the boxes are removed.

Our plan this year is to build a winch-powered forklift type thing as detailed in Warré’s book, so that we can easily nadir without disturbing the hive…

By: milkwoodkirsten

milkwoodkirsten — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 22:27:54 +0000

Liesel Native bees build comb in a completely different way (upwards in a spiral, rather than down in plates like euro honeybees), so Warré boxes wouldn’t suit. With flightpath, a rule of thumb is to point the hive entrance away from any thoroughfare, as the bees fly straight forwards from the hive for a number of meters. If you want to point them at a fence or whatever to lift their flightpath above head height, leave 6m between the hive and the fence/hedge

By: naturescookbook

naturescookbook — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:06:14 +0000

When the bees exit their hive, they like to just go in a straight line at top speed. So either you site the hive on an incline, so any paths are below the hive (like they seem to have done at Milkwood) or you place the hive so that the entrance faces a hedge/wall/etc. (maybe a couple meters away), so that the bees are forced to spiral up soon after exiting their hive.

By: Liesel

Liesel — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:32:04 +0000

I wonder, can you use a Warre hive to keep native stingless bees? Not so much for the honey but just to support a local population of native pollinators.
And… how on earth do you predict a colony’s flight path? We back onto a primary school so would have to be very careful about siting a hive.
Love the warre posts, a lot of food for thought Liesel

By: naturescookbookLuise

naturescookbookLuise — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:25:46 +0000

I was beekeeping with a Warré system two years ago and I found it quite difficult to lift the whole system (to nadir, for example). One box alone filled with combs and honey tended to weigh about 20 kgs, so three boxes were almost too much for my two helper guys. How do you manage that weight? Do you always have strong helpers at hand? Do you take the whole hive apart to nadir?