In an effort to get the bees to move up to box #3, I made some ladders. The first two boxes were full. I knew I better give them more room, but they wouldn’t move up…until I added ladders.
March 24, 2014…I pulled out some bars so I could replace them with ladders. I’m reluctant to use foundation, so I’m being miserly with what I have left in old comb…MY COMB which doesn’t contain any toxins from mite strips, meds, or antibiotics. As long as the ladders are 7.5″ (19 cm) they work well.
Second ladder is added. In all I placed about four ladders. A 7.5″ (19 cm) length of wood is added for stability. The remaining four bars have small pieces of comb melted on. When I have no comb left, I just use the lengths of wood with wax melted on.
Looking up from underneath the box at the ladders and non ladders.
March 24, 2014…bees moved in right away.
April 18, 2014…#3 box is 3/4 full, time to add box #4.
April 18, 2014…I just added box #4, again with ladders…bees move up immediately.
Many thanks to Johann for the deft camera work.
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
SO CUTE… BEE LADDERS! 😀
Apologies in advance if my question sounds ridiculous because I don’t have a Warre hive. However, I’m considering trying either a Warre or Lang next year, so I’m starting my research now.
I’m very curious about the ladders. I thought that Warre hives were typically nadired so that bees in Warres started at the top of the hive and built downward. But you mentioned that your bees were building up. Do you essentially manage your hive like a Lang and super instead? I’m curious about the advantages/challenges that you face with that approach. Thanks!
I’m fairly new at this too. From one of the beekeeping forums, one of the main Warre beekeepers advised to nadir the first year, super the second year. I’ve had limited success in nadiring. Sometimes the bees fill the first box and stop. That’s what happened last year BEFORE I learned about the ladders. I’m told you can go either direction with the ladders. Since Warre 2 already had two boxes full I decided to go upward. The bees glommed on Box #3 and built so fast, I had to add Box #4. I might have to add Box #5.
In my other Warre, I just put a swarm into a three box hive. Originally it was supposed to be two boxes, but when I was dumping the swarm into the top of the two boxes, I used an empty Warre box to keep the bees from spilling over the side. I decided just to add bars to that box, so now they are building from box #3 downward. Incidentally, I provided ladders for all three boxes. The bees are producing gobs of comb in the top box and they have already started building downward into the middle box. I guess it works both ways.
The challenge I could face is the boxes might be ‘fused together’ with them building upward. That’s easy to fix by pulling a thin wire slowly through to cut the comb.
If you get a Warre hive, be sure to get one with observation windows. I just loooove looking at them building comb and moving around in there.
Take a look at Bernhard Heuval’s post here, which I finally found…
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?270466-Moving-down-into-the-next-box/page3
“Nadir first year, super in the following years.”
Thanks so much for that info. Very helpful!
I hadn’t heard of ladders before. Is it more difficult to extract the honey than if you bought foundation? If you use ladders is it better to provide whole honey comb to eat? You don’t see a lot of honeycomb now. Amelia
Last year I cut a lot of honeycomb into some jars of honey, It was sooo tasty. I don’t extract honey. I use the crush and strain method. For the small amount of honey I get, that’s an easy way to collect it. Actually, I didn’t think I’d get any because of the cool summers we get.
Sounds delicious. If I ever get round to keeping bees I would only want a small quantity of honey. We like honey but for two of us we don’t get through so much.
It’s best not to eat too much sugar (honey included) anyway.
That’s a cool tip. I’ve not seen ladders in action before.
I’ve heard of bees in trees, tree bees, and mountain climbing bees. But I ain’t never heard of ladder climbing bees! I like this concept: keeps them busy and they have nice, pristine comb of their own making. Good work!
Natural comb building is important. I like the idea of letting the bees themselves decide what cell size to make. In this way, the workers (not the queen) determine the gender of the occupant. Small cell is worker (female), large cell is drone (male), perpendicular cells are queen cells. Let the bees decide!