This is my first year beekeeping and I have two hives. I think I made a mistake installing the inner cover and not sure what I should do about it now. I have my screened bottom board sitting on some cindar blocks. Then my first deep with 10 frames. Then I have my inner cover. Now, this is where one of the potential problems is. I have the ventalation notch down, not up. On top of my inner cover, I had another deep, but with no frames. Sitting inside of that deep is a pale feeder restiing on two sticks resting on the inner cover. Also on the top of the inner cover is a pollen patty. I have put crumpled up news paper to discourage building comb up there. Then on top of that I have my outer cover w/a 1/2 of a cinder block on it for a bit of stability in any wind we may get.
What I am observing is that 95% of all incoming and outgoing traffic is going in and out of the ventalation notch, not the bottom entrance. There is the occasional bee coming and going from the bottom entrance.
Is this something I should correct? Leave it alone since the bees are use to it? Will it restrict traffic in and out of the hive and cause problems? Here is a video link (getting pretty good at creating these quickly :-D) .... http://jeremy.cowgar.com/files/HiveEntrance.html
Thanks,
Jeremy
Nothing to worry about. That's probably how I'd set it up as you don't want the ventilation notch up letting robbers in to the feeder. After you're done feeding you can flip it over if you like and they will go in the ventilation notch and then down the center hole.