Warre hive nadiring
Nadiring is a fancy bee
keeping word for installing a new brood box on the bottom.
The bees were nice about the
brief operation. We paused for just a minute while I balanced the box
and Anna ducked under for the above hive inspection photo.
We were both suited up in
protective gear, but we skipped the smoker and gloves due to the calm
nature of these bees.
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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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comment 1
Don't mean to nit pick, and you may have noticed that if you ask 10 beekeepers how to do something you'll get 10 different answers... but I'd suggest that you not disturb your bees, even briefly, without smoking (even just a little smoke). Even minor disturbances to the hive get the guard bees agitated and will spread "alarm" signals through the hive. You may not be there long enough to get buzzed or stung, but the bees are definitely responding to the disturbance for some time afterwards...and the more times this happens the more trigger happy they'll become to be. A little smoke will sufficiently "distract" the hive and "divert attention" from the alarming guard bees. I once had a very gentle hive that went "mean" and superceded after a few too many casual inspections by an inexperienced beekeeper (me!:). Anyway, just my two cents and good luck!
Comment by
chris
— Thu May 24 16:51:04 2012
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Not smoking the bees
Chris --- I don't mind nitpicks. In this case, I disagree with you, though. The usual method with Warre hives is not to smoke the bees at all while nadiring, because you don't actual agitate anyone since you barely disrupt the brood chamber at all. When you take off the lid to harvest honey, that's another matter, but when nadiring, you just lift the entire hive straight up, which does confuse a few bees, but doesn't seem to cause an alarm response. Or at least that's what I've read, and have seen in my one inspection. 
Comment by
anna
— Thu May 24 17:11:06 2012
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