I have been investigating more of the natural ways of keeping bees and came across an article about how bees want to keep an upper entrance rather than a bottom one. This defies the standard hive design straight off. A bottom entrance makes drafts in the brood chamber making it harder for the bees to keep a constant temp and humidity. An experiment was done (you can find it on the main Beesource page all the way at the bottom, then an article about "honey excluders") anyway they found that the upper entrance hives made lots of honey and the brood chamber was kept below with the queen not ever being limited by honey in the brood chamber. The honey supers could be extra ventilated for maximum production while keeping the brood chamber ventilated to a minimum for constant temps and humidity. I think these ideas could be integrated with a bottom closed screened bottom board to catch mites, also with the unlimited broodnest to create really productive colonies kept in more of a natural manner with an absolute minimum of stress to the bees. Of course I will do some experiments.
I have now designed and built a few of these entrances and plan to test them this season. My bottom boards will be screened and a 3/8" beespace maintained around the bottom edge of the hive body with a 1" long space open for cleaning bees to access and also for drones to escape if I should decide to use a queen excluder.
I have these entrances on 14 of my new hives. The best working hive at this point has quite a flow of air coming out the top even though the entrance is partly closed off. I have also noticed dead bees laying just outside the small bottom entrance.
So far, everything seems to be working out fine.
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Sol Parker
Southern Oregon Apiaries
Update:
After having the bees on upper entrances for three weeks, most hives doing well. The hives that have upper entrances do not use the lower entrances, they are guarded in most cases, but not used.
After the whole summer of trying the new entrances, I think I am satisfied. I think in the future, I will make the bottom entrance a little wider though, just for more ventilation.
I wish I had gotten a hive big enough to try the unlimited broodnest thing. The highest I got a hive was two full boxes, and this from a hive that was split. It did really well, remember, it was a package.
I wonder how often you can split a first year package and still get your best hive out of the deal?
Hey Wired,
What was your final configuration? Did you use an excluder above the top entrance? Was enough honey stored below in the broad chambers (especially the bottom chamber)? Here's the way I see it stack up:
1. Super
2. Super
3. Excluder
4. Main Entrance
5. Brood
6. Brood
7. Small Entrance
8. Screened BB
Solomon how did it go are you still using this setup or did you find that it was more trouble then worth it I want to know I'm going to try this on a few of my hives this year.
Wow, old thread, all the way back to my newbee days!
I am still using a setup very similar to this and in fact, the vast majority of the entrances I'm using are the ones I built back then. Currently, I am using two entrances and two identical lids for each hive. From the bottom up, it goes, lid, entrance, box box box, entrance (landing board up to make an awning), lid, brick. On small hives, I will leave off either the upper or lower entrance.
This year, I neglected to put any entrance reducers on, so we'll see how that goes. So far, no problems.
I have seen the bees tend to prefer the upper entrances as a rule, with lower entrances being more or less vacant. Robbers go by smell and since the bottom is an intake, there doesn't seem to be much draw for them there.
One other modification I have been using is making the bottom box a ten frame nuc with a permanently attached bottom and a 1.5" hole for an entrance drilled into the front of the box. Upper entrances have remained the same except for turning them over to make an awning rather than a landing board. Landing boards are unnecessary and awnings are much more useful in keeping rain and snow out.
With upper entrances, I never have condensation problems.
Thanks for the reply the last two years I've used a screened inner cover liked it very well do you use a queen excluder above the broodnest.And can you tell how much better your honey flow is compared to a regular setup.
I don't use a queen excluder for anything other than queen rearing (queenright cell builder and finisher). For that purpose, I have a handfull of plastic queen excluders. As for comparing with a conventional setup, I couldn't say. There is no honey to be had when it's hot enough to really need big ventilation.
I went to all upper entrances on my 4-way pallets last spring and have eliminated skunk and mouse problems and produced the most honey since I started keeping bees.
A skunk problem is what renewed my dedication to upper entrances. I had been less dedicated to it for a while. The skunk was what gave me the idea for the 10-frame nuc bottom box. The 1.5" hole has a metal disc entrance on it. I can close it off and still maintain ventilation.
>> how bees want to keep an upper entrance rather than a bottom one. This defies the standard hive design straight off. A bottom entrance makes drafts in the brood chamber making it harder for the bees to keep a constant temp and humidity.
I dont know how you manage the bottom entrance but I reduce mine for most of the year, except during the heat of the production season. They then use the entrance fully for fanning and to provide an opening large enough to handle the huge amount of traffic into and out of the hive through the day.
In the spring fall and winter they have a reduced entrance which is much prefered over the full entrance
upper entrance during the winter is key
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)?
I went to all upper entrances on my 4-way pallets last spring and have eliminated skunk and mouse problems and produced the most honey since I started keeping bees.
Completely eliminated the bottom entrance and the upper entrance is part of the rim on my migratory covers.
Can't wait to see the honey production rates over several more years to see if it was just a good year or if the change really made a difference.
I don't get bearding as much and the bees don't sit and fan since the entrance is at the top and lets the heat readily escape!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!~
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.
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.
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.
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