Opening the Warre hive for the first time
When I delved into the Warre hive for the first time last
week, I learned why I sometimes see Warre beekeepers with a wire tool a
bit like a cheese-slicer. The boxes aren't as keen on coming
apart as Lanstroths are, so I accidentally ripped part of a few combs
in half when they stuck to the top bars of the hive body below. I
guess I'll have to rig some kind of wax-slicer for the next time I open
the hive...a year from now.
In the meantime, we'll
be pouring
sugar water down the bees' gullets to make sure they double
their winter
stores in the next
month. Except for only having only one box full of 
honey,
the hive looked quite healthy, with a lot of new workers about to hatch
out and get to work collecting ragweed pollen and goldenrod nectar.
I also noticed that my ant
problem had been
taken care of with a biological control --- a skink moved into the
quilt. I love how the neglect method solves so many farm pest
problems.
We bought all of
Bradley's father's honey this summer since we want our bees to keep
everything they produce during their first year. I'm debating
splitting the hive next year and spending another year without
homegrown honey, or trying to find a local nuc next spring to increase
our apiary while allowing this first hive to feed us. Even though
the decision seems far in the future, we learned the hard way that
tracking down local bees should be started early, so we'll probably
choose between our options soon.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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