As regular readers know, I've been pondering alternative beekeeping methods all winter.  Both of our hives (semi-traditional Langstroth) died last fall, so we're buying two packages of chemical-free bees to start over this spring.  One package will go into a top bar hive courtesy of Everett, but I haven't quite decided whether the other colony will go back into our Langstroth hives (managed in Michael Bush's style) or whether they'll go into a Warre hive.

When I explained the differences between Warre and top bar hives before, I said that the book to read on Warre hives is Abbe Warre's Beekeeping for All.  However, I ended up instead picking up a copy of David Heaf's The Bee-friendly Beekeeper.  This modern book sums up the experiments and innovations that have accumulated since the Warre hive hit the English-speaking world in 2006.  It has lots of pretty pictures to make the text more understandable and is definitely worth hunting down (even though it's expensive in the U.S. since the book is British).  The author is a bit preachy about sustainability of materials and the book is short (referring you back to Beekeeping for All for more information), but I like the way Heaf has clearly delved into the scientific literature to find real facts about natural beekeeping.

Stay tuned for information about the Warre hive all week in my lunchtime series.  Meanwhile, maybe you can help me decide whether it's crazy to try out two new beekeeping methods at once, or whether it's an unparalleled opportunity for a side by side comparison of horiztontal and vertical top bar hives.