Top Bar Beekeeping Forum

[stevenb]

Hi

I read the johan thur beeking and he recomends the christ hive box of 280x280x140 whereas abbe warre recomends one of 300x300x210. the answer could be as simple as geographical location of the hive makers

its obivious that both men had the true welfare of the bees at the heart which no one can fault

Apart from the hive sizes there aint much differance, ther are pros and cons to both, the smaller hive would defienetly a lot easier to hadle though, i suppose the best way to find out is to build the both and post my results in 10 years time.....

Steven

[chaindrivecharlie]

What is bad about Abbe Christ hives is the possibility of killing Your queen when opening hive with the wire. You have to pull a wire between the box's to seperate them, killing bees as You go. What the difference is, Warre found that 210mm was the perfect depth. Bees stop building downward at this depth. With the Christ hive they attach comb to the next level down, thats why the wire to cut apart box's. So with the Warre hives no tearing hives box's apart, just open with hive tool. And no chance of killing Your queen or worker bee's. Bee's are happier and less likely to get upset with their handler when opening hive. That is the one reason why I choose the Warre hive for my bee's.

Good Luck and Godspeed
_________________
 In HIS Serivce 
chaindrivecharlie

Florida Cracker living in Wisconsin = chesse cracker
http://chaindrivecharlie.blogspot.com
http://www.Bikers4Christ.com  



  

[stevenb]

that warre hive it is then

thanks Steven

[chaindrivecharlie]

You are welcome, read all You can on this system. There many links on here that will take You to some great Abbe Warre hive users. Even some who use them commerically in France. Also You can PM David Heaf for any added help and me also.

Good Luck and Godspeed
_________________
 In HIS Serivce 
chaindrivecharlie

Florida Cracker living in Wisconsin = chesse cracker
http://chaindrivecharlie.blogspot.com
http://www.Bikers4Christ.com  



  

[stevenb]

One last question,

What would your general rule of thumb as how many boxs would i need per hive i know warre had 7 at 1 stage but would 5 surfice, i dont want to be caught short on my first season

Steven

[chaindrivecharlie]

Abbe Warre designed this hive to work with 2 in winter and 4 during summer. So 5 is more than enough per colony of bees.
_________________
 In HIS Serivce 
chaindrivecharlie

Florida Cracker living in Wisconsin = chesse cracker
http://chaindrivecharlie.blogspot.com
http://www.Bikers4Christ.com  



  

[zaunreiter]

I use 4 boxes per hive. I always have spare hive boxes around, just in case. When it is swarm season, there always is a need for more hives. I regularily run out of hives in swarm season. So I took three hive boxes which I had in reserve and put the swarm into them. A simple board as a lid had to do the job until I have the time to build a proper roof and floor board.

As a rule of thumb, I would build the doubled numbers of hive you want to keep. For example if you want to keep one, build three ( ). If you want to keep 2 build 4. If you want to keep more than 10 I'd stop doubling the number, of course.

Care for the bees.
Care for the Earth.
Care for the People.
Share the Ressources.

Bernhard
_________________
~ back to the bees ~