My bees somehow have found a hole between the two boxes and they are no longer using the main hive entrance but they are all coming and going from the back. What gives? I haven't looked at taking them apart yet to investigate because I havent had a day over 55 degrees to open it up. Any advice?
My main hive did this to me. Basically the bottom board was old and sort of rotted out and all the weight from the hive didn't help it any. So it warped and then broke open. No bother I just went to the hardware store and bought the wood petty stuff, or wood dough we used to use in shop class, and one night I just patched it up. Doesn't really solve the problem of the board but oh well.
If your weather conditions are reasonable, I would try to inspect why they are using that location.
Perhaps you have a die off of bees clogging between the combs.
Maybe a mouse is impeding the egress.
With these ideas in mind, I would not recommend blindly clogging the hole until you understand why its a choice.
It would really have my curiosity.
Do let us know what you find.
Quote from: NWIN Beekeeper on March 04, 2008, 11:23:38 PM
If your weather conditions are reasonable, I would try to inspect why they are using that location.
Perhaps you have a die off of bees clogging between the combs.
Maybe a mouse is impeding the egress.
With these ideas in mind, I would not recommend blindly clogging the hole until you understand why its a choice.
It would really have my curiosity.
Yeah, what he said.
....JP
Do let us know what you find.
a clogged entrance would force the bees to make a new one and they will pick a place where the wall is the thinnist to do that. A bottom entrance is conventional wisdom, that doesn't make it the best solution. I started experimenting with multiple and top entrance back in the early 60's.
A lot of you have top entrances and don't even know it...