I returned home very late tonight from a 10 day trip to find the entire outside of my hive covered in bees. I assume it is a ventilation problem as it has been over 30 degrees C here this past week with no rain. I had put a new deep super on before leaving with 10 frames of foundation (no comb). The novice that I am, I had not drilled a hole(s) in my inner cover, assuming this was something that I should do later in the summer. It's 2:30 am right now and I just finished propping the inner cover up about 1.5 inches on the front with a couple small pieces of wood in the hope that the increased circulation will cool things off (if that is the problem).
I have a screened bottom board to install tomorrow which should help with circulation, as well as an extra super if needed. I also plan on drilling my feeder/vent holes in the inner cover tomorrow morning. Apart from that, I'm not sure if I should be doing anything else to stop them from swarming. So far I can't find a queen in the mix outside, which I'm taking to be a good thing. Also, when I opened the inner cover and shined a flashlight in there were bees inside, so not everyone was hanging out outside.
p.s., the girls were not happy about being woken up at 2:00am but only two of them decided to take a poke at me... considering I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and no veil I was very impressed at how calm they were. I did fire up the smoker though.
Any helpful suggestions would be great.
I have a screened bottom board to install tomorrow which should help with circulation, as well as an extra super if needed. I also plan on drilling my feeder/vent holes in the inner cover tomorrow morning. Apart from that, I'm not sure if I should be doing anything else to stop them from swarming. So far I can't find a queen in the mix outside, which I'm taking to be a good thing. Also, when I opened the inner cover and shined a flashlight in there were bees inside, so not everyone was hanging out outside.
p.s., the girls were not happy about being woken up at 2:00am but only two of them decided to take a poke at me... considering I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and no veil I was very impressed at how calm they were. I did fire up the smoker though.
Any helpful suggestions would be great.