The Warré hive: building down, not up

A Warré hive is a stack of small square boxes, each about 300 mm across and 15 to 20 kg full, far lighter than a National or Langstroth box.

Where a Langstroth grows by supering, adding a box on top once the colony fills what it has, a Warré grows by nadiring: an empty box goes in underneath the stack, once the bottom box is roughly 80 percent full, so the colony builds fresh comb below while its older comb rises toward the honey stored above. There is no queen excluder.

A cloth-and-sawdust quilt box under the roof manages moisture by soaking it up rather than venting it out. With no frames to slide out one at a time, a full inspection means lifting whole boxes apart, which is why most Warré keepers check only at nadiring and at the season's end, trusting the entrance and the hive's own weight the rest of the year.