# Is it late to start a warre hive



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Should be fine as long as you feed. I wouldn't cage the queen, though. If you want to be 100% sure, better staple a queen excluder to the front entrance. That'll do without prisoning the queen and preventing her from laying eggs. After some days, and combs being build and fresh brood, you can remove the excluder.


----------



## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

...


----------



## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

1st August - warre start from scratch. OA solution applied too. Next treatment in a year.

View attachment 20390


----------



## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Some progress


----------



## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Bernhard one question: do you really think all theses swarming rumours related to this kind of hive are true?

I have the impression that swarming issues are coming from the fact that warre hives are mostly managed by beginners.


----------



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

I share this impression. :thumbsup:

Last year I had 3 % swarms of all my Warré hives. Close to nothing. Intensive management, though. Keep supering well ahead of time and good ventilation in hot weather. The type of bee surely adds on the results, but that'll be the case in any other hive, too.


----------



## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Bernhard, can you detail what you mean by 'intensive management'? I suspect it goes much further than what Warre details.

The 'impression' that Warre hives swarm is based largely upon the lack of management that attracts people to warre hives in the first place. Swarming is seen as a feature....perhaps not by your neighbors however.


----------



## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

They almost draw all the upper box storing a lot of sugar. However the queen didn't have much place to lay in so the hive is slowly depopulating. I've stopped feeding for now and cut a frame of capped brood from a lang.









Any advices?


----------



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Continue to feed, but very slow, just a bit at a time. 

Place pollen patties to give them a push. (Don't know if you have small hive beetles. If you do, take care.)


----------



## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

First capped brood(not in these images) and things go well so far:
















Slow feeding as adviced. I love this hive.


----------



## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Don't forget the pollen. Is important to get more brood.


----------



## asd (Jun 10, 2015)

Hi,

The hive wintered fine. No sign of disease. The upper box is still heavy and full of bees gathering pollen when weather permits. I've already built some new boxes for this year. I plan to populate them with shook swarms from the other lang hives and I think there'll be plenty of them this year:







(a well populated lang hive)

I've read something about a person that had warre and sell packages and queens. How do you make a package out of a warre hive? How do you drive the bees out into the package box?


----------

