When we nadired our Warre hive yesterday, I couldn't resist asking Mark to rest the upper boxes on the corner of the new box so that I could peer up into their living quarters.  I kept my inspection quick, but could still see a bit of capped brood along with lots of very well built comb.  The thin wedges of wood extending down from the top bars in our Warre hive had clearly done a very good job as comb guides.

From the light weight of the two boxes we lifted on top of the new box, I suspect the colony hasn't built much in the top box yet.  I was tempted to place the presumably empty top box on the bottom instead of using a new box during the nadiring procedure, but I'm sticking to the letter of the law with Warre hives --- only take off the lid once a year.  Worse case scenario, the bees are cleaning and sanitizing an attic that they're not using, which isn't such a big deal in the summer.

I've been seeing more worker bees around the garden this week, which is another good sign that our bees are taking off.  Maybe they'll need another box in a week or two?  Meanwhile, I'm still feeding them all the sugar water they can eat.  Those light boxes had little or no honey in them, and I don't want our new package to starve.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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