So you have a nice new Warré Hive and no bees, what to
do? Well the commercial option is to
install a bee package. I do not like
packages because I think it's hard on the bees and they seem to have a very low
success rate.
A very good option is to capture a swarm. I caught one this year and it was easy and
fun. If the swarm lands within reach
they can be a very good source of bees.
It has several advantages over buying a package. First of all with a swarm you get a lot more
bees than a package. All of these bees
are from the same hive unlike a package.
All of the swarm bees will be keyed in on the queen already so no wait
there. The swarm bees will be from your
local area which means they are already acclimatized to your region. Most packages come from thousands of miles
away. The bees show up tired, thirsty,
and confused. Swarm bees are full of
honey and ready to build a new home.
Nucs are a great option for Langstroth hives but are
difficult to prepare for a Warré Hive.
The frames in the Nuc are not compatible with the Warré dimensions.
I recently did a cut out for a neighbor. I was able to not only capture the bees but I
was also able to keep five of their brood combs and hang them from the top bars
of my Warré Hive. This is probably the
best possible scenario for the bees.
They get everything they need to really set up shop rapidly in a Warré
Hive. The drawback to cutout's are they
are quite involved and would be overwhelming for a beginner. I was fortunate to be a part of a three man
team and we borrowed a bee vacuum.
Luckily neither of the other guys wanted the bees so I managed to put
them all in my Warré.
The new bees are rapidly building comb and seem to like their new home.
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