Top entrance changeover

[BruinnieBear]

I'd like to move from a typical bottom entrance strategy to a top entrance.  Honey supers are off, and I'm building reserves in the brood boxes for winter.  My question is how to go about the changeover.

My logic tells me it should be done gradually by restricting the entrance reducer, while providing the new top entrance.  I know this will bottle neck the bees coming and going until they figure out where the new entrance is.  Should it be done over a period of days/weeks?  ... or am I better off to wait until I close them up for the season?  There is some yellowjacket activity and I'm concerned with shimming the inner cover too much to make the new entrance more obvious.

Secondly, is a landing board necessary for the top entrance?

Thanx, for any help?

BB

[GJP]

I converted to top entrances last summer.  I kept the bottom entrances for about a week while also setting up the top entrances.  I started with cedar shim stock!  After a week I closed up the bottom entrances and went with only the tops.  The girls kept trying to get into the bottom entrances for about a week and finally just went for the tops.  They have worked out well and do a nice job of ventilating the hives in combination with screened bottom boards.  For more info check out Michael Bush's website:  www.bushfarms.com

[BruinnieBear]

For more info check out Michael Bush's website:  www.bushfarms.com

This was the primary reason I chose to switch.  I noticed his entrances don't have landing boards, and I suppose they don't them if the entrance is a little larger.  Maybe they could be shut down enough to discourage predators.  Thinking out loud.

Thanx, for your input!  Your timetable is helpful, which isn't covered at MB's site.

BB

[Joelel]

I'd like to move from a typical bottom entrance strategy to a top entrance.  Honey supers are off, and I'm building reserves in the brood boxes for winter.  My question is how to go about the changeover.

My logic tells me it should be done gradually by restricting the entrance reducer, while providing the new top entrance.  I know this will bottle neck the bees coming and going until they figure out where the new entrance is.  Should it be done over a period of days/weeks?  ... or am I better off to wait until I close them up for the season?  There is some yellowjacket activity and I'm concerned with shimming the inner cover too much to make the new entrance more obvious.

Secondly, is a landing board necessary for the top entrance?

Thanx, for any help?

BB

This is my thought,I would just Put in the new entrance and close the old one and lower the new entrance to where the old one was,cut legs off the stand or what ever. I would put on a landing board so they can all hang out for a beer in the evening.
  Then if it were me ,I wouldn't close the lower entrance,I would have two.

[harvey]

When I first started my hive a friend beek gave me a deep brood box, it had a one inch hole in it just under the handle in the front.  He says all his boxes have this one inch hole in it.  When I got my new equipment I put a one inch hole in just one of my deeps.  The bottom deep does not have it but I left the bottom entrance open.  I use a solid bottom board.  The second deep has the one inch hole / entrance.  Most of the bees use the bottom entrance.  About 1/3 of the activity is through the top entrance.  I don't have any entrances above the brood box.  My friend says he reduces the top entrance to a 3/8 inch hole in the winter.  Basically he puts a one inch plug in the drilled hole and the plug has a 3/8 inch hole drilled in it.  So far it has worked for me. 

[wisconsin_cur]

I just threw on the top cover and closed up the bottom.  There was one day of confusion followed by 3-4 days of the slow learners trying to get in and out of the bottom, then they learned.

[BruinnieBear]

This is my thought,I would just Put in the new entrance and close the old one and lower the new entrance to where the old one was,cut legs off the stand or what ever. I would put on a landing board so they can all hang out for a beer in the evening.

... and probably don't have to clear three foot drifts in the Winter or mow grass in the Summer in TexaS.  As far as the landing board, they don't sell Lone Star up here.  Brandy's more to their taste.

BB

[BruinnieBear]

I just threw on the top cover and closed up the bottom.  There was one day of confusion followed by 3-4 days of the slow learners trying to get in and out of the bottom, then they learned.

Sounds like a plan!  Do you vary your entrance size between summer and winter?  If so, how?

BB

[wisconsin_cur]

I just threw on the top cover and closed up the bottom.  There was one day of confusion followed by 3-4 days of the slow learners trying to get in and out of the bottom, then they learned.

Sounds like a plan!  Do you vary your entrance size between summer and winter?  If so, how?

BB

I will be going into my first winter so everything I say is just parroting what I read somewhere else.

Seems like people do both without any big change in results.  I guess I will leave the opening the same size and see how it goes. 

[Michael Bush]

>Secondly, is a landing board necessary for the top entrance?

No.

[alfred]

I did the switch last year. just switched it one day. Yea they were confused for a few days, but they got over it.

I use shims stapled to a peice of plywood for my top entrances. In the winter I closed up the entrance with part of a shim to a space about 3 inches. Seems to work great.

I did just recently read where someone was using double entrance bottoms boards and have been thinking about applying this idea to my top entrances.

Alfred

[wisconsin_cur]

I am wondering how this effects honey harvesting.  I admit I was looking forward to using an escape board to make robbing the hive a little less tramautic for everybody but as I think about the mechanics of a top entrance that means I either need honey supers on the bottom or I need another approach. 

Before I attempt to re-invent the wheel, does any one have any suggestions?

[Michael Bush]

>I admit I was looking forward to using an escape board to make robbing the hive a little less tramautic for everybody but as I think about the mechanics of a top entrance that means I either need honey supers on the bottom or I need another approach.

The honey will be on top.  That's where the bees put it.  If you put an escape board on a bottom board and stack supers on that and another escape board on top (facing the correct directions of course) then you don't have to move the boxes as many times and you'll resolve your top entrance issues.  Of course if you wait until it gets cold you won't need the escape boards at all.  :)

[wisconsin_cur]

>I admit I was looking forward to using an escape board to make robbing the hive a little less tramautic for everybody but as I think about the mechanics of a top entrance that means I either need honey supers on the bottom or I need another approach.

The honey will be on top.  That's where the bees put it.  If you put an escape board on a bottom board and stack supers on that and another escape board on top (facing the correct directions of course) then you don't have to move the boxes as many times and you'll resolve your top entrance issues.  Of course if you wait until it gets cold you won't need the escape boards at all.  :)

Great!    :cheer:  A simple answer that does not require me to buy anything (my favorite kind of answer).

How cold?  In other words is there a window where I am less likely to find a cluster on the honey that I want to take?  My thought would be a 40 - 50 degree morning but, again, I don't want to re-invent the wheel

[Michael Bush]

>My thought would be a 40 - 50 degree morning

Yes.  Probably more like the 40 F but 50 might do first thing after a chilly night.  Cold enough for them to cluster.