Natural Beekeeping Network

[biobee]

Abbé Emille Warré experimented with over 350 hives of various types over a period of 50 years. During that time he developed a bee-friendly, fixed-comb hive designed for minimal intervention, easy harvesting and enlargement as well as for producing honey at minimal cost of labour and capital. He called his hive la Ruche Populaire, which could be translated as 'the People's Hive'.

The vertical top bar hive designed by Abbé Warré and described in his book, "Beekeeping For All' is an alternative to the Kenyan or Tanzanian styles of horizontal hive with which readers of this forum will be familiar. It is designed for minimum intervention through the season. Although some box lifting is required at times (so it is less suitable for people with disabilities) the boxes are smaller than those of framed hives.

An English translation by Pat Cheney and David Heaf has recently been published and is available for free download here http://www.mygarden.me.uk/ModifiedAbbeWarreHive.htm
_________________
The Barefoot Beekeeper
The podcast
Guide to Swarming and Swarm Management

[David Heaf]

Many thanks to 'biobee' for introducing this topic to the forum.

This is to introduce myself and give more detail of a different concept in top-bar hive beekeeping, namely that of Abbé Emile Warré (? - 1951).

A Warré hive is a tiered top-bar fixed-comb hive comprising a stack of at least two boxes each of internal dimensions 300 x 300 x 210 (deep) mm with 8 top-bars in each box at 36 mm centres and 12 mm spaces between each bar and the between outside bar and the walls.

The hive allows for continuous comb growth downwards and honey is harvested from the top box(es) as the brood nest descends. Under normal management, the hive is opened in the strict sense only once a year, namely at harvest.

Warré's biggest criticism of the way beekeeping had developed since the mid-19th century was regarding the use of frames, even if the hive was not opened and the frames shuffled about.

Warré's book 'L' Apiculture Pour Tous' is now available in English at:

http://www.mygarden.me.uk/beekeeping_for_all.pdf

My Warré experiment, so far with 6 colonies, is described at

http://www.mygarden.me.uk/ModifiedAbbeWarreHive.htm

I refer to it as an experiment because the hive was developed in France and it has yet to be seen if it works in the wet, cool, maritime climate of North West Wales.

Whether the hive and its management can be adapted to conform to organic standards remains to be seen. I would welcome any initiative to test the hive in the English 'Sprachraum' and share experiences. So far, I know of Warré beekeepers only on the European mainland (D, B, CH, F).

I am happy to answer any questions on the hive and its management.

If anyone can tell me how to put umlauts, grave and acute accents etc in posts to this forum from an Apple Mac I would much appreciate it.

I will be a sporadic contributor to this forum as I do not have broadband. If you have an urgent question, you can reach me by reconstructing the following anti-spam email address:

101622 (dot) 2773 (at) compuserve (dot) com

where 'dot' and 'at' are replaced by the symbols they denote.

David Heaf
North Wales, UK

Beekeeper since 2003; hives at 30 metres over mean sea level; 17 colonies: 6 in Warré hives, 13 in 'National' (framed) hives; translated Michael Weiler's book 'Bees & Honey from Flower to Jar' (Floris Books, 2006) which includes an appendix on beekeeping under Demeter (biodynamic) certification.

[Norm]

Many thanks David for making all this information available to us. I myself am a great believer in minimal intrusion and have been interested in your experiments for quite some time. But I also like the simplicity of horizontal TBH's and that is the direction that I have gone for now. I have a long history with Nationals(Mid 1980's) and have tried the local Layens hives here in Spain, neither of which I think are suitable hives for long term sustainability or indeed beekeeping in a natural manner. I hope you keep us informed of any updates to your web pages.

Norm

[moersch51]

Hello David-

Thanks for all the valuable info. I downloaded and read about half of the book over the weekend, and must admit I was quite impressed, not only with the info, but with the very simple style of writing.

I do have some reservations and questions, which I'm hoping will be answered by the time I'm finished reading.

Regards
John

[zaunreiter]

Hi,

@Norm: TBH beekepping is simple. From what I have experienced, the Warre method is very simple, too. Even simplier? Give it a try....
_________________
~ ubi apis, ibi salus ~

(latin: where bees, there health)

[David Heaf]

Over Christmas I translated the document that prompted me to experiment with beekeeping in Warré hives. I have put it on the net for free download at http://www.mygarden.me.uk/thur.pdf

It comprises a couple of chapters from 'Beekeeping: natural, simple and ecological' by Johann Thur translated from Bienenzucht. Naturgerecht einfach und erfolgsicher (Wien, Gerasdorf, Kapellerfeld, 2nd ed., 1946). I found it so convincing that I asked the beekeeper at the Goetheanum in Switzerland who sent it me for plans of such a hive. In reply he said that the hive concept had been updated and that the Warré design is now used.

Thur argues that for maximum bee health a hive should mimic as near as possible the situation in a cavity, say in a hollow tree, occupied by wild/feral bees. The most important thing to note about this situation is that the combs are fixed to the roof of the cavity and to some extent to the walls. The arrangement forms cul-de-sacs or spaces between the combs that are open only at the bottom. With this arrangement, there is nowhere for rising currents of warm air to go. It observes the principle of what Thur referred to as 'Nestduftwarmebindung' which one could translate as 'retention of nest scent and heat'.

Thur then goes on to describe a type of hive that strictly observes this principle. It is the hive of Abbé Christ (1739-1813). From Thur's description of it, it is clear that it is identical in concept to Warré's. Not only that, but also, if correct conversion of the old French units of measurement are used, the internal plan of a Christ hive body appears to be 30 x 30 cm, itentical with Warré's. Yet the two men are believed to have reached their hive designs independently.

Whilst I can only speculate as to what retention of nest scent means in terms of health for the bees, I think that nobody will have difficulty with the concept of retention of nest heat. It would be an interesting task for bee science to study the importance of the quality, composition and integrity of the pheromone-laden atmosphere between the combs for bee health.

[biobee]

David,

Thanks indeed for your heroic efforts over Christmas - a most interesting read.

I have sent you a PM.
_________________
The Barefoot Beekeeper
The podcast
Guide to Swarming and Swarm Management

[enewbold]

[enewbold]

[Gary]

David,
To make the pronuncion of an unlaut in english type the english character and follow it with an "e" The e takes the place of the umlaut.
Example:
The German city of Grafenwoehr written in German has an umlaut over the o (I cannot type one on my keyboard either) and no "e" between the "o" and "h" .
Does that help.

[enewbold]

[zaunreiter]

Hi Ed,

I try to answer, what I'm do when beekeeping with Warre hives.

[enewbold]

Thanks very much, zaunreiter. Your explanations have been quite valuable to me. I am constructing the boxes now and will post some photos of my efforts when I have completed them.

Ed

[Honey Addict]

I'd really like to thank David Heaf for his work of translating this for all of us. I'd also like to say how encouraged I am by everyone here that I'm doing the right thing by trying to go 'natural' with my bees. I'm not much of a poster and I don't own a digital camera - some of my reasons for none of you having heard from me before. I'm currently transfering from a lang to a warre' with plans to do a few feral cut-out this coming spring (I've located 2 colonies, but haven't built them homes) - another warre' for myself and a vTBH for my wife. After a few years of her thinking I'm nuts, the 'Barefoot Beekeeper' won her over! Then again, she's a sucker for a British accent
_________________
- Jon

[gunther]

hi everyone
i had a swarm move into a hive, beginning july. it's a national brood box with two supers without queenexcluder. i had left it last autumn, asit was, quite a bit of honey and no mite treatment. unfortunately i forgot the entrance block, and a mouse destroyed everything.
the new swarm is very gentle quite dark looking bees, and i am very enthusiastic again.
i think the warre hive is the way foreward, trying tocreate a natural environment, with very little interference.so i've lined a national box with styropor to get roughly to warre's interior size, nailed topbars across, and put it underneath the hive. i coulndt help peeping into the top, just lots of bracecomb partly filled with honey, but nothing capped yet. everything looking good now, my question is: why not use an entry hole at the top?
i've read somewhere, that a top entrance would solve the condensation problem in winter, as well as problems with slugs , mice , etc.
i love keeping bees, but not if it envolves using chemicals.
looking forward to your expert opinion/ advice