Upper entrances, nature and IPM

[Ian]

Hi, is this a general reference to running colonies in your area or specific to your own indoor wintering set-up (as per that nice video you linked a while back)?

ha ha thanks Rolande, kinda crazy walking aisles of stacked hives

as to your question, upper entrance has little effect in an indoor wintering set up. My comment was more towards the outdoor wintering arrangement. It provides natural convection to help reduce moisture also provides them an entrance during periods when the lower entrance is blocked with snow and ice.

But throughout the production season , I see more bees using the bottom entrance than the top.
But then again, my hives are full of cracks and holes, so really who knows, right?

[Ian]

i have seen hives in churches which fill an entire section of a wall use a one inch hole for an entrance.

I have also seen a hive in a shed where as they walked a good meter to get in and out of their hive.

I have also seen a hive build open comb on a tree limb

and I have also seen a hive that nicely filled a squirrel hole, to the squirrels dismay , lol


What Im trying to say is that it really makes little difference as far as the bees are concerned. They deal the best with the home they find.

[Mtn. Bee]

I don't use honey/queen excluders anymore except for queen rearing as well.

[doc25]

I provide both top and bottom entrances to my hives, some have Q excluders some don't. Some hives make lots of use of the top entrance, some mainly use the bottom entrance. Can't figure out why.

[Solomon Parker]

What Im trying to say is that it really makes little difference as far as the bees are concerned. They deal the best with the home they find.

I agree with you generally speaking. A hive can survive with almost any size entrance, from a tiny hole to being totally open to the air (as might be the case in an attic as long as they are sheltered.) But if you're trying to keep bees in a utilitarian hive and make honey out of the deal, entrance characteristics are somewhat more constrained.

[kenr]

I've got three supers(honey) that I had drilled a 7/16 hole in it last year and put them right above the queen excluder and they were barely used.This year I'm going to close off the front at least.And keep the excluder on at least untill they have one super of honey between the brood and the new supers of comb.And then remove the queenexcluders hopefully this will keep the queen down below.

[Solomon Parker]

Sounds like a couple things converged to hose your honey production. First I'd say is that the bees either weren't such that make honey, or didn't have any honey to make. Are you opposed to not using excluders?

[lazy shooter]

I realize that there will be differences in the amount of honey produced by individual hives, but do some bee colonies just not produce any excess honey?

[Solomon Parker]

Yes, there are colonies which simply do not produce any excess honey. All other things equal, few would hold it against you for requeening such a colony.

[Ian]

I realize that there will be differences in the amount of honey produced by individual hives, but do some bee colonies just not produce any excess honey?

its all about the number of bees and the amount of nectar available to be gathered.

[kenr]

Sounds like a couple things converged to hose your honey production. First I'd say is that the bees either weren't such that make honey, or didn't have any honey to make. Are you opposed to not using excluders?

First of all everytime I tried not using excluders I always got brood in my honeycombs.Always!!Don't know if it was bad luck bad beekeeping or what I know know now to have a wall of honey and the queen will not pass hense the queenexcluder for the first super and then removing it for the rest of the crop.I live in a area with a good number of poplar trees and wild blackberrys for the spring honeycrop and about 26+ sourwood trees for the summercrop it could be my homegrown queens.I have some other queens Sunkist, Minn-hygenic most of my flock are Italian based local stock.I'm going to feed and give pollen this spring and see if this helps.Alot of my hives last year just didn't have the bees they needed to make honey even though I did keep them from swarming.

[Ian]

your not the only one, queens love to move up !

[Joel]

We use queen excluders because we don't want brood in our honey supers then jog the 2nd honey super back 1/2 inch so the bees have an upper entrance. Reduces crowding in the broood chamber so helps control swarming, speeds up honey getting into surplus storage and allows better ventilation during honey flows.

[Mtn. Bee]

I place the honey supers that get brood in them on the very top when adding more supers and let the brood hatch out above the honey ceiling. Once they hatch out the workers will fill the open spaces where the brood hatched out with honey.
I do use excluders on my comb honey boxes!~

[Solomon Parker]

I just don't harvest frames with brood in them unless it's just a little drone brood. None of my frames are sacred as drone or honey frames. Usually honey frames are just brood frames that have loads of drone and have been moved up.

[rkereid]

I went to all upper entrances on my 4-way pallets last spring

and the upper entrance is part of the rim on my migratory covers.

Mtn- Can you share a picture of what this setup looks like? Is the entire front open and how much? Thanks.

[Solomon Parker]

If you download the full res version of the picture on the front page of my website (parkerfarms.biz), you can see 2.5 versions of my upper entrances. The first is a shim made of 3/4" material with a landing board that I have taken to use as an awning. That is on the two leftmost hives. The foremost hive uses one as a bottom entrance. Across the front row, you can see upper entrances of the Michael Bush style, using a shim glued to a piece of plywood. The foremost hive has one made from an old billboard, and the other two have one made of plywood that I happened to have that was cut with a 45 degree edge. In the very back is a hive with an upper entrance of the style of an inner cover with a small bee escape slot cut in the front.

[kenr]

The last time I didn't use a queen excluder when I went to take honey off I had brood in almost every frame made me sick also had permacomb she really liked them frames.

[Mtn. Bee]

Mtn- Can you share a picture of what this setup looks like? Is the entire front open and how much? Thanks.

Sure can here you go check pics below!

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/...psb5cc4bf2.jpg

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/...ps253749d8.jpg

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/...ps83a31aa6.jpg

http://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/...psfb23b71d.jpg

[Ian]

love the pics, cant wait til spring !