The Roof

The Warré roof is marvel of design. The distinctive sloping eaves are designed to shed water and the raised ridge board creates spacious ventilation openings for the dissipation of excess heat and moisture on hot summer days.

Beneath the quaint roof is what is perhaps the abbé's most ingenious contribution to beehive design, a box which he called (in the somewhat misleading English translation) the quilt. The quilt is half the height of the hive box and sits on top the top hive box underneath the roof as a sort of attic. The quilt box is filled with insulating material that allows for the passage of air. Warré recommended dried leaves or grass; wood shavings and even biodegradable packing peanuts have also been used with success. My quilt is fitted with a permanent aluminum screen on the bottom to prevent insulation from falling into the brood chamber if the hessian is damaged. This is explained below.

"Hessian" is the British word for the rough cloth cloth we Americans call "burlap." Beneath the quilt and above the topmost hive box is a removable frame covered with this material. In Warré's original design this formed the bottom of the quilt. Burlap is an organic material the bees like and sometimes chew. The bees cement over the gaps in the weave with propolis, reducing air flow and increasing heat retention. Should the hive become too warm, the bees will chew away some of the propolis, increasing air flow and making it easier to maintain the ideal temperature. Warré's discovery that bees are capable of regulating the temperature and humidity of the hive in this way is perhaps his greatest contribution to the art of beekeeping. Swapping out a propolized hessian for a clean one allows the harverst of the propolis without disturbing the colony. Pretty neat!

The Abbé Warré was a genius when it came to beehive design. His hives are masterpieces on two different levels. The most important, of course, is his invention of the roof-quilt-hessian design which gives the maximum degree of temperature and humidity control of any hive design and does so in a bee-controled system which is no work for the beekeeper.

The second level on which Warré's design is brillant comes from his vision of a "people's hive," an inexpensive system that could be built by unskilled labor with a minimum of time, expense and equipment. The sophistication of the design is impressive; that it can be constructed with a few boards, a hand saw, a hammer and a pocketful of nails is truly amazing!

On top of the quilt box I place a frame covered with coarse metal screening called hardware cloth. This is not strictly necessary as far as the bees are concerned, but it serves as a mouse guard. Mice are attracted to hives as a warm and dry place to spend the winter. Bees are surprisingly tolerant of these winter guests but they can make a disruptive mess as their personal hygene habits are far from the fastidious standards of their hosts.

There is a trade-off for the simplicity of Warré's original design, particularly in the roof. The roof takes the most damage from sun and snow. Warré's flat ridge, painted wood and nailed construction takes a beating in our New England climate with its seasonal extremes.

I have replaced the original roof with an angled peak and covered it with metal flashing of copper or aluminum. The original ventilation gaps have been replaced by circular ports protected from mice with quarter-inch galvanized hardware cloth. The walls of both roof and quilt are box jointed like the rest of the hive.

The result is a roof system that is more difficult to build but very much more weather resistant and long lasting. The volume of this improved design is the same as Warré's and its function in ventilation in conjunction with the quilt and hessian is identical. The large increase in the cost of bees and the price of honey today make this construction a worthwhile investment.