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Upper entrances, nature and IPM

22K views 60 replies 17 participants last post by  Mtn. Bee 
#1 ·
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 would love to see some comments on this one.

Sol Parker
 
#27 ·
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.

Sol
 
#28 ·
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
 
#29 ·
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.


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Sol Parker
Southern Oregon Apiaries
http://www.allnaturalhoney.com
 
#30 ·
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?

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Sol Parker
Southern Oregon Apiaries
http://www.allnaturalhoney.com
 
#32 ·
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
 
#33 ·
I didnt end up with anything but plain bottom board, two or three deeps (top one not full) entrance doodad and then top.

I plan to have an entrance on top of three deeps and have deeps for honey on top of that, however many I shal. need, I will see.

------------------
Sol Parker
Southern Oregon Apiaries
http://www.allnaturalhoney.com
 
#35 ·
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.
 
#40 ·
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.
 
#37 ·
>> 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
 
#39 ·
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!
 
#42 ·
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.
 
#45 ·
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.
 
#46 ·
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.
 
#51 ·
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.
 
#54 ·
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!~
 
#57 ·
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.
 
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