Hi Paul and all,
I read an article the other day about managing top bar hives. It spoke about
the pro’s and con’s of top bar hives vs vertical hives and the writer said that
one of the “Pro’s” for the top bar hive was the direction that the colony
expands the hive, claiming horizontal is “natural” and vertical is not. ......
(I feel the hackles rising even from here ha ha)..... moving on... Given that
the idea behind the Warre is that the bees prefer to expand their brood
vertically rather than horizontally I began to look at where wild colonies are
often found and to be honest it made me wonder, given that they seem to take
advantage of any shape and sized cavity they find. If they find themselves
between floor boards they expand horizontally and if they find themselves in a
wall cavity they extend their comb vertically.
Any thoughts ?
Ann
