Frequently there is discussion about upper/top hive entrances and their benefits on this forum (and now detailed in Michael Bush’s book on page 329). Last summer I converted my nine hives to upper entrances and finally had a decent honey harvest from my older hives.
I built upper entrances with a landing board that can quickly be placed between the hive bodies and the supers -- I do not use queen excluders. During the process of coming up with a design I looked at several of Joe Clemens designs (boy do I appreciate his CAD expertise!), the Imirie shim, and in the bee supply catalogs for options. My design is different than most that I have seen. It is constructed from 5 pieces of wood per the attached graphic. I make the opening about 20” in length, slightly longer than the standard 19 7/8” hive box, so that it fits easily on the hive box and there is a crack for a rain gutter on the front edge. As long as the two long shims are cut from good wood the frame is very sturdy.
Contact me if you have questions or need additional information.
Thanks for your detailed plan on the top entrance frame. I build one yesterday and installed it today.
How soon did you see the bees use the top entrance after installation?
Did you reduce the bottom entrance right away?
I would appreciate any comments.
One note for future 'builders' make sure you don't make the distance between front entrance board and back board to tight or it may not fit all supers because of this lack of tolerance and the rain can't run off.
To answer the questions:
I never completely close the bottom entrance. I believe they need some lower access to be able to clean the hive out from the bottom. I reduce the bottom entrance with a reducer to about 2 inches. In most of my hives 99% of the bees use the middle entrance..
I place the middle entrance between the 2 hive bodies and the supers. The bees will definitely propylize the entrance to the hive bodies. I can usually crack off of the supers without damaging the entrance frame. However it is still a thin shim and will not last forever. I know that I have had some hives for at least four years .
You should expect to get some burr comb (usually drone comb) between the supers and hive bodies when you use this entrance. I believe this is beneficial in that it acts as a queen gap. Last year I pulled 130 frames from my supers and had brood in only four or five. Last year I averaged 70 pounds per hive -- a great year.
Thanks Carl, much appreciated. I installed it between honey super 2 & 3 and have two deep brood.
It seems the bees just suntan and dance on top and do a lot of propylizing. Maybe they just need a little time.
@jgrizle - one mistake I made was build the frame to tight, the next one will be a little more 'sloppy' and one has to be careful, but once installed it can stay until removal of the honey supers, so I don't see to big of a problem. Once one is made, it only takes 10 minutes to make a bunch from left over wood.
Maybe it should have a handrail to avoid bee injuries it is deep!
The guy who taught me was big into boring holes in all his honey supers and top boxes in deeps.
It taught me to look where I put my paws before I grab. It relates to this topic in that his theory was to save workers a lot of travel-time. Training the field bees to use them holes...he never taught me about that but simply muttered something about that they'll propolize them up if they don't want to use them.
I built a couple of these and installed them a few weeks ago on my two strongest hives. My bees totally ignored them, other than having guard bees inside watching the entrance. I removed them and all is good. I place my inner cover notch down and my bees love that as an upper entrance.
I've found that slipping a super back 3/4", and laying an entrance reducer across the gap created in the front is the simplest, easiest & least "resource & effort" demanding approach. I suppose you could call it the "super-slide".
The design of standard supers is such that there is no opening in the back when one is slid back 3/4" over the one below - the inside top box simply overhangs the bottom outside in the back, with perhaps a hairline crack that the bees soon propolize shut.
The 3/4" gap across the front is the same width as a standard entrance reducer. If one didn't mind a small handful of "specialty pieces", one could make "entrance reducers" that are 1-1/2" longer (the outside width of whatever size box you are using). The bees also quickly propolize the reducer into place, and there is usually enough existing propolis to hold it there to begin with. Obviously, you can vary the entrance size with the ease of changing the reducer.
As usual, there are often many solutions to a given "problem". This has been my "simplest solution" for decades, and it wasn't my idea. The bees do often take a week or three to become accustomed to it. However if you are uniting a divide , above a double screen over a parent colony - problem also solved.
If you are looking for a top entrance for the winter, well, there are plenty of options there, as well.
I came up with this design years ago. I've generally been using bottom entrances, but if I were going to use top entrances, I'd use this kind of design. After the entrances are milled with a dado, a kerf is cut across the entrances, and 3/16 strips are glued under to maintain bee space and strengthen the kerf. The kerf allows for a strip of queen excluder or an entrance block to be slid in.
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