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My first hive from last year has overwintered and is just exploding. I needed to remove several swarm cells last weekend and will be splitting the hive this coming weekend. I have two deeps (10 frame) completely full of bees and a third deep with 5 frames covered with bees.
Since the early spring, the bees have been using the small top enterance above the second box as their main entrance, and sporadically using the bottom entrance. The bottom entrance is reduced to the medium opening on a standard reducer. Our nights have been sporadic with temps over the last month, so I left it reduced when I switched the bottom two boxes. I do plan on removing the reducer completely since the temps look to remain higher than 55 for lows from here on out. My question is how do I get them to use only the bottom entrance, or I guess the question should be, do I need to? I have noticed that when working in the hive I encounter many more bees than last year flying around since their main entrance is now disturbed. So should I do something about this or not?
Thanks, Paul
Since the early spring, the bees have been using the small top enterance above the second box as their main entrance, and sporadically using the bottom entrance. The bottom entrance is reduced to the medium opening on a standard reducer. Our nights have been sporadic with temps over the last month, so I left it reduced when I switched the bottom two boxes. I do plan on removing the reducer completely since the temps look to remain higher than 55 for lows from here on out. My question is how do I get them to use only the bottom entrance, or I guess the question should be, do I need to? I have noticed that when working in the hive I encounter many more bees than last year flying around since their main entrance is now disturbed. So should I do something about this or not?
Thanks, Paul