Instead of purchasing the popular Langstroth hive, I’ve decided on the Warre hive. The past few weeks I’ve been doing my research and I really think that I’ll like the Warre and so I purchased my first Warre hive this morning.
My Warre Bee Hive will be similar to this, but my hive will have an observation window. Abbé Émile Warré (1867-1951) created the Warre hive, he was an apiarist and resources say he studied over 350 different hive systems before he created his own, the Warre hive aka The People’s Hive. There was a great podcast over on Pargamatic Beekeeping that talked about top bar hives yet another great resource that helped me decide to purchase a Warre hive.
I’ve known about Warre hives for several years, but I was a bit unsure about using them since there wasn’t as much information about them as the Langstroth hives. I like that the Warre hives are smaller and they’re designed so the beekeeper doesn’t have to be in them as much. Which is perfect for me, since I want to stay out of the honeybees way… letting them do their own thing with little interaction from myself. I simply don’t want to constantly be barging in on their bee space. Checking the place where I ordered my package bees, I might not receive my honeybees until later in May… and that’s fine with me. I’ve waited years to finally get around to purchasing my own hives, a few more weeks won’t hurt.
Honey is at the bottom of my list on why I want honeybees
As I’ve mentioned many times my main reason for getting honeybees isn’t for honey, I want to include them in our yard because they’re great pollinators and I’d love to see more honeybees in our area. Over the past several years, because of the dwindling honeybee population (also called Colony Collapse Disorder) I haven’t seen as many of one of my favorite insects until last year… Last year, I started seeing more honeybees not at the same level before I noticed a decline, but it sure was nice to see more around the house.
While some people view honeybees as pests, I know without them the some of the food that we depend upon to survive wouldn’t be available.
Q – We watched the fabulous PBS special about honeybees. They did a wonderful job of explaining and showing how the virus is killing bees. Demonstrating Colony Collapse Disorder. That’s why my friend imported a queen from Russia. Supposed to be more resilient.
My parents lived on an acre of land, small but large for the city, and their friends asked if they could keep the boxy, white, beehives on the land. My parents said yes since they had so many fruit trees and vegetable gardens.
I still say honey is a wonderful bonus to keeping bees.
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@curls and q, Several years ago I read an interesting study seems to be the beekeepers that used natural means to tend to their hives weren’t facing the same loss as those who used chemicals. Which makes me think that the chemical free bees built up natural immunity to whatever is happening the bees.
Oh honey is a nice bonus…for some folks. Wax might be the first thing I harvest from them since wax candles are the only candles that add benefits to our environment. Regarding honey, there are some beekeepers that become a bit greedy when they take honey for consumption. If a beekeeper takes too much, honeybees might not have enough time to build up honeycomb (in places that have cold winter months) and they will starve, since they don’t have enough of the food they made (honey) to survive throughout the winter.
I’m looking forward to my honeybees and learning more about these amazing creatures.
Aynaria recently posted..Treatment-free beekeeping…
I’m so excited for you and your new project!!!!
Jennifer recently posted..Earth Day, Carbon Foot Print, and Kind Life
Thanks @Jennifer, I figured I needed to stop putting this off. Because of my busy schedule, I was planning on holding off another year but I’ve said that for the past four or five years. My schedule is hectic, I just need to find the time to do the things that I enjoy.
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For sure! You need to do YOU things, too!!! I’m so happy for you!!
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