The beekeeper that I got my bees from was very insistent that I put my new hives in direct sun. I attended a meeting of our local bee keeping association last week and the man who gave the presentation talked about placing your hives in direct sunlight. He said it helped with hive beetles, or maybe it was mites, I don't rememeber. At any rate, most of the hives I see on youtube videos posted by new beeks, show that there hives are in the shade. Did they not get the same advice I did, or is the advice I got wrong? I know naturally bees live in hollow trees, but things have changed with the presence of diseases and parasites that the wild bees of times gone by were not subjected to.
I'm in Texas, where temps can get over 100 for days on end, and there is no way I will ever place my hives in direct sunlight. They get morning sun, then dappled and/or full shade the rest of the day.
The thinking is that bees can tolerate more heat than the beetles can. All I know is that the only hives I ever lost to beetles were sitting in shade. Now there ARE parts of the country that apparently don't have beetle problems...yet...so for them it may not matter at all. But here in the deep south, believe me, IT MATTERS.
I think that in the shade up here in WI, some days in June/July they might not warm up until early afternoon. It's not uncommon to see 40's at night in the summer around here.
I read that morning sun gets the bees up and working early in the day, after that it didnt matter too much.. Mine get morning sun, mid day sun, and shaded evenings
I vote for full sun as well. The only time I ever had a major issue with mites and also with hive beetles here in CA is with two hives I had in pretty much full shade all day. Both hives were strong but had beetles and eventually died from heavy mite loads last fall. My other hives that were in full sun had no hive beetles and never succombed to mites even though they had them.
As for the heat, I think as long as there is a water source near by they will control their own enviroment by using the swamp cooler effect.
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