I am a new member and new to bees, this is our first year with a hive. I have reviewed several of the previous topics and discovered that our bees are "bearding". We have had a very warm month and the last few days have been humid as well as hot, yesterday it was 98 degrees for a high. We do have our bees in partial shade but I think it just may be too hot for them.
My question is: With the "bearding" going on how urgent is it for us to check the hive? It is supposed to rain more tonight but be warm (around 89) when my husband would be working on them. He is worried that they may be too crowded. We have 4 full size supers and last time they were checked the top one was well on it's way to being full of honey (YUM!). Can we wait for a few days to check or is the bearding serious enough threat of swarming we need to take action in spite of the rain.
Thanks for all the advice I have already received from this group and I look forward to learning many more things about these amazing insects!
Pam
there are 3 things missing in your info provided....location location and location.
Rain kills bees and really pees them off as Understudy shows in this thread-
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php?topic=10736.0 (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php?topic=10736.0)
Alot of people worry about bearding, but is there is rain coming it will cool things off.
I figure the Bees have been bearding since long before ventilated tops. If a storm is coming I'd close it.
Oppz, what Randy is trying to tell you is it's important to go to your profile and put in your location. Doesn't ahve to be your street address or anything, just a clue as to where you're posting from.
If your worried about the bearding bees getting wet, they will be OK. If you haven't given them any upper ventilation, prop the cover up with a few 1"x1"s.