Top Brood nest Entrance...

[Steve C]

Hello,

Just put on a Top Brood Nest Entrance , just below the honey supers... It is just a Reg type bottom board open with 9 slats routed out and 2 on very side.. (11 total). I got the idea from a post I saw here to keep queen out of honey supers and provide field bee's direct access to honey supers without going through brood nest.... (as i understand it)
the New top entrance is open all the way, but the old bottom brood nest entrance is restricted to 1/2" open hole

Question:
How long should it take the bee's to relocate to the new Entrance...??

It already in the last 2 min i was standing there has a major traffic jam from returning field bee's(i have a major flow going on) on old entrance, I want to get quicker access for honey production...My only though was I should have done this before flow....but this flow will last for another 4 or 5 weeks...

Thanks...

[HiveMind]

The bees will probably take the remainder of the day today to get retrained on where the entrance is (as each forager comes back to find that things have been switched up). The fanners will periodically come to the new entrance and the mass of confused bees will notice and walk up the hive into the relocated entrance. Tomorrow they'll likely be used to using the new entrance and everything will be normal again.

[Joseph Clemens]

As long as you have an opening on the bottom, where all the present field bees have learned is their entrance - they may continue to fight over using it. If you close it completely, they have no choice but to learn about their new upper entrance (which usually only takes a few days).

[Steve C]

Mr. C...
I think your right... I just checked on them and they were just using the little opening on bottom board.... so I closed it up totally, now have a great big traffic jam(you would almost think it was a swarm)...but it looks like "some of the smarter one's" are going inside via the top entrance...lol
not all, but a few.... and it looked like more and more were doing it ever min that passed by..... will check on them in few hour's....

[msapostol]

Hi Steve,
Do you have any pics you can post of the new entrance? I am very interested in this subject, and being unfamiliar with woodworking terms, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the description. In other words, I'm female, and am at a loss!

Thanks,

[iwombat]

They take awhile to retrain. When you take off an entrance reducer all the bees come and go in the spot the old opening was for days. Even though the whole bottom board is now open they all come and go in a 1" space. It's kind of comical, really.

[tben]

As long as you have an opening on the bottom, where all the present field bees have learned is their entrance - they may continue to fight over using it. If you close it completely, they have no choice but to learn about their new upper entrance (which usually only takes a few days).

+1

This has been my experience too. After two weeks of having a full size top entrance and only two tiny (1/4"x1/2") holes at the bottom the majority of the bees still compete to use the bottom entrances.

[Steve C]

A pic is what you ask for....
The slats lineup with the space between a 10 frame super....

[ccar2000]

It took my bees about two weeks with both entrances open. I used 3/8" spacers in between the queen excluder and first super. The spacers are tacked onto the the super