The Bees

Our Honey Bees

Our bees live in small Warré hives on an organic farm in Berkshire, New York. They collect nectar, pollen and sap from trees and plants growing on the farm. Unlike the bees of many commercial beekeepers, they do not travel.

The lives of bees in the hive

A colony of honey bees consists of a single queen, hundreds of male drones and 15,000 to 60,000 female worker bees. Each honey bee colony also has developing eggs, larvae and pupae. The number of individual bees depends upon the size and number of boxes and on seasonal changes.

There is only one queen. She lives for 2-4 years, unless the beekeeper or the bees replace her. Her duty to the colony is to mate once and then lay eggs

There are hundreds of drones; these are male bees who live 55-90 days. Some drones mate with the queen of a different colony; others just hang around. Bee scientists are not sure if they do anything else for the colony. It seems that colonies with drones are happier than those without.

There are tens of thousands of worker bees. They live 6-7 weeks, unless they hatched in autumn then they live 4-6 months. These are female bees who are sterile, do not mate or lay eggs. The workers do all the tasks of feeding the queen and the young bees, cleaning and guarding the hive, and foraging for nectar to make honey.

When the hive gets too full, the workers will start raising a new queen. Then the old queen will leave the hive, taking about half of the worker bees and drones. Swarming shows that the hive is a healthy and growing colony. It also provides a break in the bee cycle, which disrupts the life cycle of diseases and pests that can harm a hive.

Warré hives

French priest and beekeeper Abbé Emile Warré designed the Warré hive in the early 1900s. He studied bees and the different beehives available at the time. After much experimentation, he developed the People’s Hive to mimic the bees’ natural home– a tree trunk.

Warré wanted to make beekeeping as simple and as natural as possible. He was opposed to the invasive management of individual frames. Instead, he focused on a simple design with features that would allow bees to build a natural comb. With a Warré hive, honey is harvested once or twice a year, usually by removing an entire box. This means less disturbance to the bees and encourages happier, healthier, more productive colonies of bees.

The design of the Warré hive follows the natural behaviors of honeybees. Unlike the popular Langstroth hive, the Warré hive does not use foundations so the bees build all the comb themselves. An empty Warré hive contains eight bars, ready for the bees to draw their own comb, and nothing more! The bees will make beeswax from special glands in their abdomen and build it from each bar down into the box. In the wild, bees will usually start by making comb for their brood at the bottom of their hive. The bees will then store honey towards the top. Bees build their colony the same way inside a Warré hive.

The Warré hive has four main sections: a base, boxes, a quilt and a roof. Its entrance is much smaller than the Langstroth, making it easier for the bees to prevent trespassers (ants, wasps, other bees, etc) from entering their space. It also means that fewer bees can enter and exit at the same time.

The boxes of a Warré hive are square, measure about 12 inches by 12 inches and hold the honeycomb. This is similar to the size that bees choose when searching for a new nest site in the wild. Because the boxes are smaller, it’s easier for the bees to keep warm during winter.

The quilt helps the hive maintain optimal temperatures, especially during particularly hot or cold days. The quilt box contains a cotton pillow, usually filled with straw or wood shavings, which insulates the top of the hive. The quilt helps prevent water vapor from condensing into droplets which could drip onto the hive. The roof has two air gaps for ventilation and a steep pitch to shed water or snow.