My first Warre is the one on the left. It’s the one I was really worried about not getting through the winter. It wintered over with only one box which is now on the bottom.
I don’t know why I was so skeptical when people talked about getting honey bound. I guess I never thought I’d get ANY honey at all because the summers on the coast are so windy and cool. Our main goal was to provide a place for the bees to live, let them pollinate our flower and vegetable garden, and just take pleasure in watching them do their thing.
When we captured a swarm last year to inhabit the Warre, it was a small one which seemed to build the first box very quickly and then just stopped building. I wintered over with just one box and on the advice of many more knowledgeable people, fed the bees a dry sugar paddy.
Bottom box (#1) over wintered successfully. So we added box #2 in February.
On February 15, I added a second box. When the bees wouldn’t fill it, I added some comb ladders on March 24th. The bees immediately started building comb which is full now as can be seen below.
Box #2 As soon as the comb ladders were added, the bees built fast so the queen could lay. When it was 3/4 full, I added a third box.
When box #2 was 3/4 full we added box #3, but comb was getting scarce so I tried using t-posts with a melted wax coating to act as a ladder. Small pieces of comb was ‘welded’ to the top bars.
Box #3…adding t-posts with small bits of comb ‘welded’ to them on April 2nd.
Box #3 built up so fast we added Box #4 on May 1. But now we have this honey bound problem as can be seen below…
Box #3 is so full of honey, it’s blocking the queen from getting into the top box. The t-posts worked well.
We didn’t realize we’d get any honey…and really didn’t want to take any…UNLESS there was an excess while a nectar flow was on. Oregon’s big nectar source of blackberries is going on right now, so we will put this box #3 on top and the empty box #4 will be inserted between #1 and #2. If they build that out, I’ll get to harvest the honey.
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
I guess this is why some beekeepers nadir. Good luck with your box-switching. That box of honey is gonna be heavy! Thanks for the great pictures, as usual.
Hi HB,
I floated the question on the forum about nadiring and Bernhard suggested I super. I just read a post where he says nadir in the first year and super in the second year.
One more thing…I was planning to put box $4 between Box 1 and box 2. Within minutes of my posting this on the forum, he says, “Don’t put the empty between the two brood boxes. They will build queen cells and that hive will swarm and swarm. Just swap #3 box with the empty #4 box. I’m glad he caught my mistake in time. I’ll do that tomorrow, as well as build a wire to cut the comb which is connecting the hives together vertically.
Oh, I was thinking you were just going to switch 3 and 4. I just tweeted something for you. It’s Ormond Aebi’s supering scheme from The Art & Adventure of Beekeeping, one of my favorite books. Very thought-provoking.
Wow! Those are some of the neatest photos I have seen. Did you build your hive with those vision panels.?
I was going to build my own hives but my wife’s advice was “Buy the kits,” showing a complete lack of faith in my building abilities. I could have done it, but not in the right time frame. What takes Bill a couple of hours to do, takes me a couple of days to do. I bought them from beethinking.com. Matt gave me the option of observation windows which I’m glad I chose. I can get some real close up videos of bees building the comb. It’s awesome!
Fascinating stuff and great photos, you are a great ambassador for bee keeping 🙂
That’s all I did (switch box 3 and box 4), but I had to rig up a way to cut the comb that had been built UP from box 2. That puts the box of honey at the top which I’ll be happy to harvest if the bees fill out the empty. I’ll be posting a speeded up video on that after the grand kids go back home. They need me now for wheel barrel rides. 🙂
Thanks, this is very informative and encouraging, since I too live on the Oregon Coast,….actually on a cliff above the sea. My Warre Hive only filled one box this first year, as well. (I actually am having much better first year luck with Langstroths since the Warre swarmed and I had to do something with the swarms fast) MY MAIN QUESTION: Did you overwinter the one filled box with another empty below it????? Or just the filled box on the hive stand?
Thank you, I look forward to your answer
I wintered over with only one box, but I decided to feed them in October. At first I built a side feeder that would use a sugar syrup. It was accessible from the outside so I wouldn’t have to open the hive. Then some of the comments led me to believe feeding syrup was not the way to go because of moisture issues, so I built a frame out of 2z2’s and fed them a dry sugar mix. The ingredients included green tea and chamomile tea, apple cider vinegar, stinging nettle extract (I don’t have any stinging nettle growing near me, but you can use a leaf) and of course granulated sugar. I didn’t really want to feed, but the hive came through the winter very
well. I’ve got pictures here… https://solarbeez.com/2012/10/18/waffling-over-the-warre-to-feed-or-not-to-feed/