Top Bar Beekeeping Forum

[Walk]

I've been accumulating lumber to build a Warre hive (not pallets, although I once enclosed a porch with pallet lumber). Mostly small cut-off pieces from the lumber yard and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Got enough wood for 5-6 boxes, a bottom, top, and a quilt for about $35. Still need to get the hardware cloth for a screen bottom and some cedar shakes for the roof. Before I start cutting, I've got some design questions to work through.

I've been thinking about the idea of adding several boxes to the bottom in the spring when it is the easiest to lift only a couple of full boxes, rather than adding as the season progresses. Instead of having the entrance at the very bottom and having the bees go through several empy boxes to get to the working area of the hive, I thought I would have a closeable entrance slot on the bottom south side of each box. If I can see comb through the slot, I would close off that entrance and open the one in the box below. I'll have to provide a movable landing for the entrance, which I was planning on having painted a bee color for their visability. I thought I could make different sized entrance reducer blocks for seasonal variations. My thinking is that as the brood is always moving down near the entrance that this idea will work. Is there something I'm missing in this assumption?

As for maintaining bar spacing, I had 2 ideas. One is to have a small finishing nail hammered into the bar rest so that the head of it protrudes slightly making a "bump". A corresponding "hole" would be on the underside of the bar that would fit over the "bump". The other idea would work for bars that have beveled bottoms. This would take a bit more woodworking. Instead of a flat bar rest, it would have a "saw-toothed" ledge of 24mm V's with 12mm spacing between them. Either method would allow for removeable bars in the event of an inspection while keeping the bars properly spaced. Or maybe beveled bars with the ends flattened to use the "bump" and "hole" idea? Suggestions?
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Larisa

[chaindrivecharlie]

Walk, You can see in these pic's how I used small nails to secure bars. http://picasaweb.google.com/Chaindrivecharlie/Wed51508
They are driven in at the end between the box and bar. This way You can remove them if need be. The main thing with the WarrA hive is the least amount of intrusion into hive. As far as the entrances on each box, I dont think it would interfere with anything. Good Luck with what ever You do.
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chaindrivecharlie

Florida Cracker living in Wisconsin = chesse cracker
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[zaunreiter]

Hi Walk,

another beekeeper here in Germany drilled holes into the hive boxes and closes them with cork. Up to now the bees readily use every entrance they get. I'm just concerned about the hive's climate, but I think the idea is not bad.

Landing boards are not necessary in my eyes, when using entrances in the midst of the hive, because the bees land on the vertical surface of the hive (as they do in a natural tree hollow as well).

Regards,

Bernhard
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~ back to the bees ~

[biobee]

[Walk]

[chaindrivecharlie]

Larisa, I am sorry I forgot to post the pic's in that last post, been burning candle at both ends. I just edited that so You can see what I was refering too. I just finished a swarm box in a WarrA style box and I used bee's wax to fasten bars. So there are a lot of different ways to do this. In my pic's above I just nailed between bar ends and box. Hope to see some photo's of Your WarrA soon.

GBY
_________________
 In HIS Serivce 
chaindrivecharlie

Florida Cracker living in Wisconsin = chesse cracker
http://chaindrivecharlie.blogspot.com
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[banjostu]

Colored push-pins work for spacing bars also. Just stick them into the side of the top bar. This worked great, but you need to make sure that your top bars are just the right width, otherwise, you won't be able to fit all 8 in (I had that problem).

In the end, I decided not to fix the top bars at all. I used masking tape along the bar edges and box edge to keep them in place. I think the bees will do all of the sticking needed.

You can see the tape here: http://picasaweb.google.com/banjostu/WarreHives2008

good luck,
stu

[Walk]

[SeaBee]

One thing to consider is whether multiple (left open -- oops) entrances will complicate defense against raiders or other foreigners. Has anybody seen how natural (feral) colonies in hollow trees etc. handle such concerns? Anyway, the bees can always propolise extra or wrong-feeling ports.

[GarlyDog]

Now that it is getting hot by us, I see the bees lining up on the landing board in a rows in front of the entrance buzzing away to keep things cool. IOW, on my hive the bees make use of the landing board.
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[gunther]

nice reading this. i've also gone for this system, with the entrance slot in each box. seems it's got many advantages
my main reason for is, that the entrance is always at least 8 inch off the floor. i use a 1 inch, full widh of box entrance block at the rear of the hive, to slide in greased paper for mite drop count. i wont use wiremesh, hope the bees should have no business down there so far below the comb.

cheerio

[banjostu]

Could those of you using entrance slots on each box post a few photos? I would like to see close up how this arrangement is put together.

Also, I used hardware cloth on the bottom of my hives. I would like to get back to a more traditional warre bottom, but I like making the bottom deep, with a removable back side. This allows for sticking a mirror in to see what's going on in the bottom box. I suppose one could just pick up the box and look in, but that would be harder if there were 6 boxes of honey on top...

Photos of my hives: http://picasaweb.google.com/banjostu/WarreHives2008

I suppose though, that if there are entrances on each box, it would be fairly easy to gauge which boxes were being worked.

[banjostu]

Also....

An update on my top bar fixing strategy. I used masking tape to hold the bars equidistant. This has worked very well. No nailing, glueing, or waxing, and they are more-or-less removable--just crack the propolis and lift out. (Not as easy as a Langstroth, but I rarely need to do it--mainly when checking for eggs).

The only drawbacks: 1. a few bees get stuck to the tape and die. 2. The tape isn't super strong, so it you shake an empty box around before you set it up some of the bars may move slightly. If you are careful though, you don't even need tape--just line up the bars roughly equidistant as you set up the hive. The bees won't move the top bars much in the first few days and after that it is sufficiently stuck down by the bees.

I am pretty happy with the tape system and will continue to use it--or maybe not use tape/nails at all. As a bonus--you can easily justify that your hive has "removable frames", as required by law in some areas.

Stuart

[biobee]

Something just struck me in what you said there - supposing it was possible to design top bars that THE BEES COULD SPACE OUT THEMSELVES...!

OK, I will take my medication now...
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The Barefoot Beekeeper www.biobees.com

[gunther]

see the pics of vic's alaskan hives on yahoo/group warrebeekeeping for the entrance slot. i just done mite count with sticky board(vaseline) no need for wire mesh.