Cross comb in a Warre

[Timw 90]

2 new Warres with this seasons swarms have rapidly expanded. One of these on inspection Friday revealed marked cross combing in the new comb in box 3 (from top). How best to manage this?

[Trevor Gillbanks 5750]

Get a langstroth hive with real frames.

[yesbut 5108]

9 minutes ago, Trevor Gillbanks said:

Get a langstroth hive with real frames.

I was about to say much the same but then I thought that's really a bit nasty and not answering the question. I couldn't think of anything else though. What a mess. 

[Mummzie 412]

29 minutes ago, yesbut said:

What a mess. 

Challenge.

But I have no ideas. Glad its not my challenge. Hopefully someone else with experience of non Langstroth will have something helpful to say. 

[Timw 90]

I would have hoped that posting on the section designed for alternative beeping, someone with an experience in Warres might provide something helpful like strip the comb out and let them start afresh. 

Dissapointing to wake up to the above. As this forum was my 1st port of call I guess I’ll go elsewhere 

[tudor 1486]

Why not ask your mentor for advice ?

 

[yesbut 5108]

1 hour ago, Timw said:

I would have hoped that posting on the section designed for alternative beeping, someone with an experience in Warres might provide something helpful like strip the comb out and let them start afresh. 

Dissapointing to wake up to the above. As this forum was my 1st port of call I guess I’ll go elsewhere 

Actually you would have been well aware of the risk of this happening. It's not our fault you were remiss in your watchkeeping. 

[Trevor Gillbanks 5750]

3 hours ago, Timw said:

I would have hoped that posting on the section designed for alternative beeping, someone with an experience in Warres might provide something helpful like strip the comb out and let them start afresh. 

Dissapointing to wake up to the above. As this forum was my 1st port of call I guess I’ll go elsewhere 

Ok.  Here goes then.  You will need to cut out all the comb separately and then try and attach it to individual bars.  I did a similar exercise with bees that I removed from a bird box.  I have a video on it in youtube.

This is a yuck job and requires a lot of patience.  You will also kill a lot of bees and possible also kill the queen.

 

Best wishes.

[Beefriendly 1202]

 

11 hours ago, Trevor Gillbanks said:

Get a langstroth hive with real frames.

@Timw it can happen in Lang’s too

 

here’s a exert from @M4tt 

thread is titled ‘what a mess’ 

 

Here is their handy work.

First pic is of new grubs and removed wax on a fully predrawn frame

And below is the mess





And finally, a supercedure cell with a grub in it

 

Queen has been excused from leadership, and the supercedure cell left alone, and they have been merged. Hopefully this will sort them out

[john berry 3858]

Frankly I thought your photo was a perfect example of why that type of hive lives on the fringe of the beekeeping world but if you really want to persist I would suggest carefully cutting it all out, discarding if brood and using if honey. I would then very carefully scrape all traces of any wax that has been stuck to the side of the box and start again perhaps this time using as a minimum some strips of foundation stuck to the top bar. You would still need to inspect it regularly and try and correct any problems before they become as advanced as this. If you're primary goal is to allow them to build their own small cells for varoa control (zero evidence that this works) then this should help but if you aren't concerned with this then why don't you just put a bottom bar on the frames and wire and wax them.
I have tried to use brood out of wild hives a few times in the past by tying them into frames and found it very difficult and only marginally successful. It is not something I would do again. If I have to deal with this sort of hive now days I just treat it as a shock swarm and start again.
Your hive in its current condition especially if the box contains brood would not be legal as it would be impossible to inspect without causing serious damage so just leaving it is not an option. If it just contains honey that's not ideal either but you could just leave it until it is full and then harvest .

[tristan 3690]

where is the popcorn.

 

@Timw how to fix.

need to add a box on top with properly made frames. you can do complete foundation or use starter strips. i say frames because those ones picture are missing bottom bars which means you will have trouble with the side bars maintaining bee space. 

put the new frames in a box on top. yes i know warre is typically undersupered, but here you want the bees and more importantly the queen to go up.

once she is up and laying in the top box, fit a queen excluder in between. a cheap plastic one cut down will work ok (as much as i hate those plastic ones).

check queen is laying in top box. if so then swap boxes around so queen in the new box is on the bottom, queen excluder then old box on top.. once brood has hatched out in the old box you can then take it off, cut all the honey and frames out. enjoy the honey, fix the frames and put it back on the hive.

 

 

[Josh 298]

So I was wondering why you’d choose a Warre, and had a read. What an interesting hive philosophy. 

 

And the key, seems to be, that this hive is managed by box, not frame manipulation. So the fact this box is a mess is irrelevant, and it simply needs to be rotated out & harvested as described by @tristan

 

If you’re worried about neat and tidy frames, then the Warre philosophy seems to be contrary to that. The catch of of course being that you need removable frames in NZ for AFB management. And it will be hard to drop in EP staples ?.

[Martin Garside 124]

The whole concept of a Warre hive is to let the bees draw down naturally as they would in a hollow tree trunk. Each season they continue building down and leave the honey cells above. You nadiar the additional boxes, ie place under the stack, and after a season the very top box will be filled with only honey. Well that is the theory. It does not matter if they do not build straight according to the frames as you can extract a full box of only honey. I gave up on my experiment Warre when they built honey on frames 1 and 2, 7 and 8 and a chimney of brood in the centre down all 3 boxes. I think you need a cold snowy winter and a broodless period, like in France, to stop brood cell building until a spring and then they will continue building down. 

[cBank 658]

2 hours ago, Martin Garside said:

Well that is the theory. It does not matter if they do not build straight according to the frames

 

Does that pass muster with the removable frames requirement we all operate under in NZ? A few weeks ago someone got pinged for almost exactly this (and a fleet of other non-compliant, disease ridden hives) and an email was sent out. It pictures comb off the bottom of an excluder and feeder.

I might be misunderstanding what you mean or what is allowed with Warres though.

[tristan 3690]

2 hours ago, Martin Garside said:

they built honey on frames 1 and 2, 7 and 8 and a chimney of brood in the centre down all 3 boxes

thats normal on any hive without an excluder. 

there is some management required to that warre hive or other. ask @tudor

[tristan 3690]

1 minute ago, cBank said:

 

Does that pass muster with the removable frames requirement we all operate under in NZ? A few weeks ago someone got pinged for almost exactly this (and a fleet of other non-compliant, disease ridden hives) and an email was sent out. It pictures comb off the bottom of an excluder and feeder.

I might be misunderstanding what you mean or what is allowed with Warres though.

only matters for brood frames. for honey frames it doesn't matter.

but getting them to draw straight requires a few things but it can be done.

 

[yesbut 5108]

10 hours ago, tristan said:

only matters for brood frames. for honey frames it doesn't matter.

That's not really foreseable  though is it. And the regulations don't discriminate..

[Martin Garside 124]

When I made my Warre frames I used a standard Lang frame top bar with a section cut out to reduce it to the required length. I kept the two side bars, but did not have a bottom bar. This made all the frames removable for inspection in all sections. Did not have much cross combing!

[Josh 298]

45 minutes ago, Martin Garside said:

When I made my Warre frames I used a standard Lang frame top bar with a section cut out to reduce it to the required length. I kept the two side bars, but did not have a bottom bar. This made all the frames removable for inspection in all sections. Did not have much cross combing!

 

Each to their own, but what a lot of effort just to avoid Langstroth.

 

Can't deny their pretty hives, but I'm going to build lids for my hives that give me that cool country garden look too

[tudor 1486]

On 21/12/2018 at 9:45 PM, tristan said:

thats normal on any hive without an excluder. 

there is some management required to that warre hive or other. ask @tudor

Without an excluder the bees develop the brood nest into an onion or shallot shape.  Adding boxes into the brood nest means the bees love the space and work hard, and I usually alternate foundation and drawn frames so there is a good drawing of the foundation.  Right now most hives are 6 x 3/4 high and very busy with flow on, and as the brood hatches out the cells are cleaned and used to store honey, so the top 3 boxes are solid honey in March, or before depending on how capping is going.

I just can't understand why people waste energy making life difficult for themselves and the bees, it can be difficult enough at the best of times.  But that's ignorance for you !

 

 Unless it's just done for fun.

 

 

[tristan 3690]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

but I'm going to build lids for my hives that give me that cool country garden look too

the lids are not done for looks, it actually has real purpose. no reason you can't adapt it to any hive.

[Josh 298]

40 minutes ago, tristan said:

the lids are not done for looks, it actually has real purpose. no reason you can't adapt it to any hive.

 

I’ve adapted my old FD boxes to ventilate, but I want to add a pitched roof. The vanity of back yard hives

[yesbut 5108]

29 minutes ago, Josh said:

 

I’ve adapted my old FD boxes to ventilate, but I want to add a pitched roof. The vanity of back yard hives

You've added quilts ?

[Josh 298]

No, I use sacking in winter and nothing in summer. No evidence, just a response to the cold damn winters and dry hot summers we get in Christchurch 

[dansar 5149]

On 26/12/2018 at 1:14 PM, Josh said:

 

I’ve adapted my old FD boxes to ventilate, but I want to add a pitched roof. The vanity of back yard hives

This keeps them cooler too.