Bottom Entrance Weirdness, What's going on?

jeremy_c · May 23, 2009, 09:49:18 PM

Help! I'm a bit paranoid since on Wednesday 2 brand new package installations absconded. This hive (#1) was installed on Apr 20th from a 2# package of bees. During today's inspection, they had almost 7 full frames drawn and bees all over them all. I'd say 6 3/4's. I decided to add another deep (this will make the hive have 2 deeps now). With this hive, I've had a long standing problem (from day one) they use the vent hole as their entrance. If I watch the hive, maybe every 5 minutes or so a bee or two use the bottom entrance, other than that they all use the vent hole. The hive is setup as: bottom board, 1 deep for brood then inner cover, then 1 gallon pale for feed surrounded by a deep w/no frames, then the top cover. You can see how they would then have access to use the vent hole for access to the hive. In the last few weeks, this entrance has been pretty congested.

Anyway, today when I added another deep, the hive is now bottom board, 1 established deep, 1 empty deep, inner cover, 1 gallon pale for feed surrounded by a deep w/no frames, then the top cover. Well, this changed the height of their entrance. For about an hour after I made this change, activity on the front of the hive was high as bees were finding the way into their hive, however it returned to normal activity. However, it seems that there are a load of bees that have simply walked into the hive via the bottom entrance and are simply standing inside the hive but on the screened bottom board. They are not actually going up into the comb. I have a total of 4 langstroth hives and the other 3 have never done this, nor are right now.

I have uploaded a picture to help show what is going on:

I'm paranoid now about weird things a hive may do. If they look normal, I'm not concerned, but I really don't want to loose more hives :-/

Jeremy

buzzbee · May 23, 2009, 10:33:09 PM

If it's really warm they may be fanning air through the colony.

jeremy_c · May 23, 2009, 10:46:30 PM

Quote from: buzzbee on May 23, 2009, 10:33:09 PM
If it's really warm they may be fanning air through the colony.

The high today was 81F. This was around 6pm today. In fact, it's 9:43pm now and I just went out to see if they were still there. The hive looks exactly the same, the bees still down there. When I took the picture, and all the time I was watching them (30-45min) no bees were fanning. They were just sitting there, almost motionless. Other bees were coming and going as normal, but these ones just sitting there on the bottom.

Jeremy

sc-bee · May 24, 2009, 12:16:54 AM

They are scared of the big KILLER bee on the front of the hive :-D! Neat brand --- that's what you wanted us to see anyway --- RIGHT ;).

No idea why they would not use the bottom entrance. Have you tried stopping up the top entrance to force them to use the bottom?

RayMarler · May 24, 2009, 02:25:22 AM

That bottom entrance with all non moving bees for the most part, I would suspect those frames they are covering are brood frames, and they are covering them as protection from the large opening there at the hive entrance, and for temperature regulation which should bee 94F degrees.

slaphead · May 24, 2009, 02:37:09 AM

They're playing with you.

As soon as you've gone to bed it'll be "party time" and they'll join their girl friends on the brood.

The top entrance thing is entirely normal and in a hot climate helps them maintain the proper climate in the hive. They'll soon find it's moved up a box and then everything will be back to normal.

SH

jeremy_c · May 24, 2009, 04:40:21 AM

Quote from: slaphead on May 24, 2009, 02:37:09 AM
They're playing with you.

That's not a nice thing to do! Least they could do is tell me what's going on so I don't worry about loosing another hive! :-D

Jeremy

jeremy_c · May 24, 2009, 04:42:05 AM

Quote from: RayMarler on May 24, 2009, 02:25:22 AM
That bottom entrance with all non moving bees for the most part, I would suspect those frames they are covering are brood frames, and they are covering them as protection from the large opening there at the hive entrance, and for temperature regulation which should bee 94F degrees.

I wonder why my 3 other hives are not doing it? This hive does seem to have the most number of bees between the 4, maybe the others don't have enough bees to spare yet for this job?

Jeremy

donm · May 24, 2009, 10:05:19 AM

The stronger two of my three hives do the exact same thing. It is particularly noticeable after sunset when it starts cooling down.

jeremy_c · May 24, 2009, 11:01:46 AM

If it is indeed to maintain brood temps, wouldn't they be there this morning still? I went out around 5am (before sunrise) and they were pretty much gone. You can see them on the bottoms of the frames, but they were not collecting there in mass as they were last night.

Just trying to learn my bees, sorry for all the questions. On a side note, everyone has been fantastic here! I know my bee keeping experience so far would have been much, much, much more difficult and frustrating if it weren't for this forum.

Jeremy

Paraplegic Racehorse · May 24, 2009, 01:38:58 PM

I think I would go ahead and seal one or the other "entrance" in the middle of the night. The bees only need one of them. The easiest would be to staple window-screen material over the vent-hold (not shown?). In the morning, they will have to re-orient themselves to the entrance you've provided with your bottom board.

Brian D. Bray · May 25, 2009, 12:30:11 AM

Quote from: RayMarler on May 24, 2009, 02:25:22 AM
That bottom entrance with all non moving bees for the most part, I would suspect those frames they are covering are brood frames, and they are covering them as protection from the large opening there at the hive entrance, and for temperature regulation which should bee 94F degrees.

Use a entrance reducer so the bees don't have to post so many guard bees to protect the hive. It will also help the bees maintain a proper broodchamber temp if that is the problem. I suspect it is just the riot squad supressing a robbery.