If an additional hive was to be added at the LFSOG, we have to consider what type of hive should we add. The existing hive at the LFSOG is the standard North American model known as Langstroth hive. It consists of superimposing supers that contain vertical and removable frames. Those frames serve as a base for the bees to build their honeycomb (Martin Hilmer, personal communication, 2012). As an alternative, our group focused on Warré hives. Warré hives are top-bar hives; it means that the bees are not provided with a frame to build their honeycomb on as for the Langstroth model, but rather they build their entire frame made of bee wax, that will hang from a removable man-made bar1.
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Ecologically speaking, there are some noticeable differences between the two types of hive. Warré hives were made to mimic more closely their natural environment2. Indeed when additional space is needed in the Warré hive, boxes are added from the bottom1 and thus the bee colony expend from the top to the bottom like they usually do in nature (inversely, supers are added on top in a Langstroth hive). Also, bees, in a Warré hive, build their honeycomb entirely from the top bar, like they would from a branch. This system again allows the bees to have an activity as close as they would in their natural habitat. Finally, Warré hives do not need as much maintenance as Langstroth hives, which means that the bees are far less disturbed; up to only once a year during harvest2. No peer reviewed articles could be found on to what extend reproducing its natural habitat affects the health and resiliency of the hive and yet we can infer possible repercussions
- The disease pressure can be lower in a Warré hive because the frames are not reintroduced into the hive after harvest. Indeed, Langstroth support frames are put into a centrifuge to extract honey, cleaned and then reintroduced into the hive. This could be a vector for diseases due to imperfect cleaning of the frames or even diseases from another hive whose frames were introduced in the same centrifuge.
- Reproducing a closer to natural environment and sparsely check on the bees might decrease the stress of the colony and increase the bee’s health.
In terms of impact on the environment, the type of hive should not really make a noticeable difference as the population size in both types of hive is likely to be similar3 and the bee variety and needs are the same.
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