1 May 2011
Chris H writes:
March and May have been very busy for the bees in my Warré hive due to the spell of excellent weather. I had added a fourth box at the beginning of April but it became apparent yesterday that they were running out of room. The bees were bearding on the front of the hive with loads of bees in the air, I checked to see if I could locate the queen in the mass of bees in case she was planning to swarm but there was no sign of her and the rest of the bees decided to return back into the hive once I'd disturbed them.
I needed to add another box but knew that the hive would be too heavy to lift, so I decided to have a go at building a lift today (photos on Photographs Page) based on plans in David Heaf's book. The lift worked well enough for me to put the fifth box under the hive and I could see that box 4 was about half full of bees, but I need to make some adjustments to my build to make it more stable and secure. The lift certainly made life easier and I'd go as far as to say that a lift is essential if you intend using a Warré hive. The cost of the lift worked out at about £20 but that doesn't include the materials I had lying around the shed.