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Abbé Warré's book
Nikolay Vitvitsky's tiered top-bar hive
Nikolay Vitvitsky (1764-1853) used the same hive concept that was later to be used by Emile Warré, only the upper two boxes were narrower and shaped as truncated pyramids.
The main (lower) boxes were cubic and measured 10 x 10 x 10 inches (254 mm cube). Vitvitsky said that such a hive shape is more closely resembles hollow tree cavity, because such cavities are always narrow at the top and wider at the middle. Small swarms develop better in the narrow boxes, i.e. those with the form of a truncated pyramid which contain from three to five combs. When the upper narrow boxes were filled with honey, Vitvitsky took them off and used only the main cubic boxes (10 x 10 x 10 inches). If there was a heavy nectar flow he would nadir (add boxes underneath) with boxes that were even wider.
More detailed description
The height of all boxes is 10" (254 mm).
1st pyramidal box: 7 x 7 inches (178 x 178mm) at the top and 8.5 x 8.5 inches (216 x 216 mm) at the bottom. This very narrow box was used for installing very small or late swarms.
2nd pyramidal box 8.5 x 8.5 inches (216 x 216mm) at the top and 10 x 10 inches (254 x 254 mm) at the bottom. This box was used for installing ordinary swarms. Vitvitsky was asked by some beekeepers: "Why does he make such narrow pyramidal boxes? Bees fill them very quickly at good flow", and he answered that it is worth making such special narrow boxes and putting into them practically every young swarm (except very large ones), because one does not know if the weather is going to be good or bad.
3rd box is cubic - 10 x 10 x10 inches (254 x 254 x 254 mm). Such boxes were main, narrow pyramids were used only one season, after that several cubic boxes usually were used for nadiring.
During very abundant nectar flows Vitvitsky nadired hives with
wider truncated pyramids, each 6 inches high:
The top-bars were 1 inch (25.4 mm) wide and the space
between them was 1.5 inches (38 mm) -- nota bene: not between top-bar centres. No
comb starters were used on top-bars, so bees built combs as they wish, even at
right-angles etc the direction of the top-bars. The top-bars were not intended to provide
movable combs. They only served as anchors for the combs. The combs continued from the top
boxes to the lower ones. And the length of one whole comb could reach more than one metre.
Vitvitsky considered this to be an advantage for bees -- they would have no interruption
in the comb building.
In the last edition (1847) of Vitvitsky's book (A brief
science of the practical beekeeping) it can be read that near the end of his long
life he slightly increased the dimensions of the boxes. So for northern regions he
We thank Serg, Perm, Urals region, Russia for the material on this page.