My hives, let me show you them

[doodlemaier]

Undaunted by legal technicalities, production of the Warré-Thür-traditional Japanese mash-up, fixed comb hives has continued unabated! Some cleats for each super, a serviceable entrance reducer, and something of a simple drawer in the back of the base in which to place sticky papers are all these babies need before they're ready for a shake!

No bees, yet! The boxes have been scorched, inside and out. The screened floor is in place, and a simple spale runs diagonally between alternating corners of each super and will support the fragile comb. This particular hive is built with common, untreated 2x6's using Johann Thür's relative dimensions (the combined internal volume of every two supers equals a cube, or 3x3x3); whereas the rest of the other hives I constructed using common 2x8 lumber from Warré's relative dimensions - 3x3x4. I say relative dimensions because to use his absolute internal dimensions, 30cm x 30cm x 20cm, would require ripping a common 2x10 (or 1x10) lengthwise: Easy if you have access to a table saw, pain in the ass for me. The actual width of a 2x8 board, 18cm, is plently close enough to 20cm and is the dimension that impacts the bees the least as they experience the depth of a hive as a singular, uninterupted space. And, the fact that I'm using nominal 2-by's rather than what passes for 1 inch (~1.8cm) lumber makes for a very heavy box. The mere centimeters of volume we gain through this are not worth the additional expense and effort. Trust me!

Moveable frames have been modified into top bars. With a traditional Japanese hive top bars have been modified again into a fixed grid, here fashioned from oak stops, that serve as the surface that bees attach their comb to. Foundation and guides, being conventions which existed for the convenience of beekeepers and to the detriment of the bees themselves, have been completely eliminated. Solely, the bees determine the best configuration for their comb, which will likely run from corner to corner and be attached to all sides of the supers. The "footprint" of each super is considerably smaller than the 10 frame Langstroth and the bees are given complete license over every cubic centimeter of the hive's volume. The spaces in the grid are left to promote ventilation and to allow bees access to the underside of the quilt that is set directly above the top bars . . .

But first a crown board of sorts covers the top bar grid. This is a feature unique to the traditional Japanese hive, consisting of a frame (or, in the case of the TJH, this frame is a solid, outer-most cover) and a screen of ¼" hardware cloth. Here, the frame provides a sturdy foundation for the quilt, which is placed directly above it while stabilizing and positioning the top bar grid and holds the mesh which is in place to discourage bees from making attachments to anything above it. This arrangement allows the bees access to the underside of the burlap floor of the quilt by which, through the addition or subtraction of propolis, they are able to regulate the relative humidity within the hive all by themselves (sorry, helicopter beekeepers, but your constant intrusions won't be necessary!)

Contrary to conventional Langstroth hives, colonies in tiered-topbar hives, such as this, draw comb from the top box down, called "nadiring" (expanding the hive space is done by adding additional supers at the bottom). Hiving a feral swarm is as simple as building a bait box with the same size "footprint" as the original hive. Fitted with a temporary roof and floor and, otherwise, designed to be light-weight this box is baited with brood wax, lemongrass oil and/or pheromones and positioned strategically in a tree where, hopefully, it'll soon be inhabited by a feral swarm. . .

Once inhabited, the bait box is simply deposited on top of an awaiting hive, swarm and all. The temporary floor and lid are removed, the entrance is bunged shut and the quilt and hive roof are put back in place above the baitbox. It serves as an integral super until the following spring after the colony has moved down into the permanent supers, at which point the bait box is then cut off with a length of cheese wire, the honey and wax harvested as with any other super and it's re-commissioned for swarm catching. If you think of the honey bee colony as a superorganism: The queen being the ovaries; the drones being the testes; the comb, depending on where it is located in the hive and at what stage of the colony's development is either, the liver or the placenta; then the hive is the colony's exoskeleton.