# Warre hive just for thoughts and discussion



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Read through this description of the Warre hive and see what the flaws are. Overall, I would probably do a top bar hive similar to Wyatt Mangum's in preference to a Warre.

http://thebeespace.net/warre-hive/


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## Galaxie (May 13, 2015)

I wouldn't want one because I prefer frames, but what flaws are you seeing? The whole 'nadiring' thing instead of 'supering' is the way Warre preferred, but one doesn't have to do it that way.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

What are the flaws?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

The biggest weakness of a Warre hive is lack of movable combs. The combs are attached to the sides of the box leaving them unmovable. This prevents simple manipulations such as splitting, moving combs within the brood nest, restricting amount of drone comb, etc. The modified Warre hive with movable frames loses the advantage of low cost and therefore is in the same price range as Langstroth equipment. It is still a lesson in efficiency, the Warre hive is far above most of the hives in common use at the time it was invented.


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## Wandering Man (Jan 15, 2016)

I had ordered a Warre hive for the wrong reasons, it seemed cool, was new, and had windows.

After gearing up for beekeeping again, I realized that I wasn't going to have control over which boxes the queen laid her eggs in, and I began to fear the South Texas heat would get to any combs that I might want to pull out to look at. With no frame around the comb, I feared loosing the combs if I accidently held them at a slant, rather than perpendicular to the ground.

Those are probably all problems that I could learn to cope with.

But, at my age, I just wanted to relearn what I used to know how to do. So I cancelled the order, and bought the Langstroth hive, instead.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Fusion_power said:


> The biggest weakness of a Warre hive is lack of movable combs. ... This prevents simple manipulations such as splitting, moving combs within the brood nest, restricting amount of drone comb, etc..


Huh? Can't see why this can't be done with fixed comb beekeeping. In fact this manipulations are even described in a medieval book about beekeeping in bee gums/log hives. (written by Nicol Jacobi, in German language. Year 1568.) Even the drone cutting was done back then.

Splits are done by the box. Easy. As the boxes are small, the splits are of perfect size.

Moving single combs is possible but most of the time unnecessary. I don't do it in my frame hives neither, what for? Think and work in boxes. 

Without frames there actually is less drone brood. (Unlike empty frames which sometimes produces a lot of drone brood.) If there is drone brood, you can cut it, if you desire. Since the bees are allowed to build freely, there is drone brood at the sides of each comb, in total there is less drone brood in a hive with fixed combs. 

I am interested in the etc etc. :shhhh:

I am currently running >200 Warré hives, with and without frames.

I can produce almost the same amount of honey in a Warré as in a full frame hive. The difference is, I can buy three Warré hives for the cost of one Langstroth hive. Of course not the fancy ones sold over there in North America. Red Cedar, no... You can buy them cut and sawn, ready to build sets for a very low budget here in Europe. 

The only flaws are, nobody reads the original book, nobody knows how to keep and manipulate bees in fixed comb hives (lost tradition, lost knowledge) and there is too much myth tell tale about the hive. It's simple a box of bees. That's it. All the miracles and wonders it is supposed to do, are quite stupid.

Also there is no standard processing equipment for higher hive counts. No extraction line, nothing. That's annoying. So lack of experience, lack of standard equipment are the main flaws. Another flaw is too many beginners use it, and their failure is blamed on the hive. But as not the hive but the bee brings the honey, it is the beekeeper and not the hive that tends the bees.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

That is very interesting information Bernhard. I would also include the method of handling honey as one of the weaknesses. Extractable combs makes modern beekeeping feasible.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

The "inventor" Émile Warré actually did extract his fixed combs. And describes it in his book. The one that nobody seems to read. He put his frameless combs into an extracting cage, so they don't break. Also he had a different type of extractor where the combs were layed down horizontally on each other.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

That's him in person, back in the good old days.

You see a fixed comb hive in the front, he is preparing for extraction. Also you see the cages there, stacked. 









His intentions were rather an affordable hive "for everyone" than green beekeeping. Although he noticed that bees do very well in the Warré hive. But as I said, that must be more due to the beekeeper rather than the hive alone.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

I sell cut comb and pressed honey from fixed combs. But an user of the German Warré forum showed his modern version of the extraction cages: 










You can see the gaps left and right, where the topbars stick out of the cage.


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

That is the original extractor by Warré: top view










Bienen Roth in Switzerland builds a modern version of it:










There are other manufactorers. Like Swienty, sold the "World Extractor" (no longer in production).


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

It always makes me smile when people write that Warre hives don't use frames. Of course Warre himself even designed and used frames. From what I have seen there are more choices available/used today than any other hive design. Just a few off the top of my head, Standard top bars, full wooden frames, half frames, double size frames and then there is the one I use the Delon frame. I am sure Bernhard could add a few more to that list too.
I extract in an off the shelf tangential extractor, works well. 
I must admit the main issue I have with the Warre is bottom bee space, not a big issue but it just annoys me.


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## Dominic (Jul 12, 2013)

Stephenpbird said:


> It always makes me smile when people write that Warre hives don't use frames. Of course Warre himself even designed and used frames. From what I have seen there are more choices available/used today than any other hive design. Just a few off the top of my head, Standard top bars, full wooden frames, half frames, double size frames and then there is the one I use the Delon frame. I am sure Bernhard could add a few more to that list too.
> I extract in an off the shelf tangential extractor, works well.
> I must admit the main issue I have with the Warre is bottom bee space, not a big issue but it just annoys me.


In my eyes, there are no functional differences between a Warré hive and a Langstroth hive. Putting ventilation tops or not, using full frames or partial frames, putting windows or not, adding supers above or below, using a queen excluder or not, etc., are all things that can be done just as well with one hive as with the other. Both are rectangular hives made from stacking modules including potentially movable comb (if you never open up your Lang hive, the frames will be glued to the sides just as bad as with a Warré).

The only meaningful difference is the volume of the modules, which itself is offset by the capacity to just stack them to the sky.


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