# Switch? Or not. Warre versus Langstroth



## Nu Bee

Hi all - 
I need ideas and suggestions from people who know bees: YOU. 

I heard that the Warre hive is easier to use - place it and forget it - than the Langstroth, and I have a strong suggestion from a homeowner to switch to a Warre. 

This weekend I read Heaf's book and everything that I heard (no feeding, no treatments, no maintenance) is just a suggestion and is basically not true: you need a fork lift of some sort, you still have to feed, you don't get very much honey. 

What I want to know is this: If I do place a Warre hive and forget it, will it be a death sentence for the bees or will the world make it all right and they will thrive? 

I have one L hive now with bees and have a second one assembled and ready for a spring split so the Warre would be a third, next year project. 

Just thinking ahead, unlike what I did this year. 
Em


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## Harley Craig

Yup you can set and forget either one and they will probably contain bees for a long time. BUT a few things will most likely occure if you set and forget .


1. your bees will die and AHB will move in as I understand all feral bees in Arizona are now considered Africanized to some point.

2. you won't get much honey

3. you will send a lot of bees to trees.


So in conclusion if you have a huge smoker a good full suit and you are not too worried about honey or loosing swarms to trees. Set and forget either one. If you don't want these things to happen you will need to manage your colony so you only have to decide if you want to manage by the box or by the frame? It's easy to set up a lang and run it like a warre and manage by the box, it's possible but not as user friendly to manage a warre by the frame. Being able to manage by the frame gives you a lot more options. JMO take it with a grain of salt


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## aunt betty

The days of set n forget are called "the good old days" and oh boy it was good. 
Today...is not those days.


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## Harley Craig

aunt betty said:


> The days of set n forget are called "the good old days" and oh boy it was good.
> Today...is not those days.


still happens around me. I know several guys that been keeping bees for awhile and never even heard of varroa until I mentioned something to them. They just put supers on and take them off and that is about the extent of their beekeeping. their colonies last an avg of 3-5 yrs before they die off and they replace them with splits..... For all intents and purposes nothing has changed from the " good ol days" I am slowing incorporating their genetics into my apiary, but what little I have don't produce near the honey the hives I have to fiddle with do. So it is possible, but there are huge trade offs.


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## Nu Bee

Thank you for the replies. 
I read the book and didn't see a wonderful advantage over the L so I thought I would ask. 
Em


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## Harley Craig

the biggest advantage is being able to move frames. If a colony needs a boost add a frame of emerging brood. Got a junk queen and need to pinch her pull frames till you find her, want to do multiple small harvest instead of one big one because you don't know how much to leave them...pull a frame.... etc.


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## odfrank

After more than 40 years of framed beekeeping I started some Warres and a topbars for other people. Topbar beekeeping is slow and a mess. Both topbar hives and Warre are too small for my climate. The main attribute of a Warre is that they are cute. I filled some of my clients spare Warre boxes with bait swarms, and rather delve deeper into Warre boxes, I supered with 8 frame mediums. No more Warres or topbars for me or my clients.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Nu Bee said:


> What I want to know is this: If I do place a Warre hive and forget it, will it be a death sentence for the bees or will the world make it all right and they will thrive?


No one can seriously answer this question, because, as Michael Bush uses to say: All beekeeping is local. 

I have 150 Warré hives, fixed comb and framed comb. Unlike other wannebe natural beekeepers all my boxes are populated with bees, at all times. A good bunch of it is treatment free and doesn't require much management other than the annual harvest. I never understood why some hives do alright treatment free. So I'm sorry, can't give recipes on this. 

The let alone management can be done on all sorts of hives and is not restricted to the Warré hive. In fact, it can be done on many sorts of hives, the most popular being the Bush eight frame hive. All mediums, you know. And the Warré hive itself doesn't require a let alone management style. The "inventor" Émile Warré in fact managed that hive very intensively.
Read the original book. 

As a beekeeping beginner, and you are one until at least the fifth year, you will fail in 90 % of all cases with a treatment free and let-alone management style. Fail means, most of your boxes will be empty in Spring and need to be replaced from swarms or new packages. Over and over again.

As an established beekeeper, your chances are far better, because you understand the needs and you are able to care for those needs of your bees. 

The only problem for experienced beekeepers is their experiences with framed beekeeping. They usually try to use their framed beekeeping methods on a fixed comb hive. That'll fail, too, most probably. Fixed comb beekeeping is a very traditional style of keeping bees, with their own technics and methods. In the oldest known German book on beekeeping, written in 1569, those methods are shown and include things like moving eggs and fresh brood over from one hive to the other to raise queen cells. Nothing new in beekeeping, nothing new.

So in your case, you better stick to your Langstroth for a while and once you understand bees, you can go further and explore different styles of keeping bees. 

Good luck,

Bernhard

PS: Forget about those darn hive lifts. Never needed one, and never will. You need to break up the hives for inspections anyway, so you only lift one box at one time.


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## BernhardHeuvel

Just an example, on how this looks like with bees. And how to inspect it.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_qdElx-D8Q


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## jadebees

Your bees will do better with regular care. No matter what they are kept in. I know a beek that does "hands off " with 10 frame L hives. He has most of the problems it's possible to have. AKA, neglect. He just wants honey money. He cannot understand how other people get 3 times as many hives yearly without buying them. Personally, I really like working bees. So inspections, feeding, splits, and all the rest is no issue to me. I can't count how many problems I fend off by inspecting twice a month. For example, 1 hive has mites, so very early essential oil treatment was done. That would have been a high mite load hive by Sept., when I'd normally start thinking of it. Also, as Bernhard said, I too have never found a good use for a lift. I keep Warre hives because the boxes are 40 lbs or less. My Lang hive deeps, more like 75 lbs when full. I have learned to do the same things needed for beekeeping in Warre hives as Lang hives. But that takes practice ,and doing things differently. Not harder, just different.


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## asd

I have langs and use foundation less system. The big advantage that I see in warre hives is that they are cheap. Another big advantage is wintering. I want to make a few next Summer. I also think that warre are not meant for beginners.


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## jadebees

@ asd, a beginner beekeeper can mess up any type hive. But a beginner can learn, fast. Worse, is someone that follows some fad, and isn't interested in actually Learning beekeeping. They think they have the magic that will give them some advantage never known to mere mortals. Those guys never stop having failures.


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