Bearding ok but wow!

[The15thMember]

The ones on the landing board get the cream.
The ones on the side get the rotary [attachment=0][/attachment]

Hahaha!  Going for a bee goatee there, salty? 

Yesterday morning Judy and I were drinking our morning brew on the patio and noticed the observation hive bees were working really hard. From a distance we could see a lot of pollen coming in. I went out side to get a closer look and every bee returning had pollen in her baskets. Later I looked at the landing board. They were still only bringing in pollen but now they were landing but not going inside.  Every bee hanging on the entrance was packed with pollen   Apparently the nurse bees decide they had enough pollen.
Remember it is the nurse bees that control what and how much goes into the hive.
Another factor is what the scout bees are finding in the field. If the nectar shuts down or it is too hot to fly, the scouts are not telling the other bees where to get food and they are waiting to bee told. If it is hot inside the nurse bees run them out.
A third factor recently documented is that some bees are in standby mode. They just hang around the hive and do not forage. They are like the ready reserved. If something happens to a large number of field bees, they go to work. I often find large numbers of bees clustered in open spaces in hives I am doing cutouts on. Again, if it is too hot inside, the nurse bees send them outside.
Jim Altmiller

Very interesting, thanks for the info, Jim. That last part about bees gathering in empty spaces when it?s hot, I saw my bees doing that last week and I wasn?t sure what it was!  I have a super on a hive right now that is all blank foundationless frames, and I opened the hive to check how they were drawing it out, and there were huge clusters of bees hanging from the frames up there, way more bees than are normally festooned on the frames when they are just drawing. That?s probably what they were doing.

[Ben Framed]

The bearding photo was taken at about 8pm on a summer evening. Honey gathering was over for the day.
These hives were in shade during the day but the daytime temp was probably 95+.
These beards will still be there, if not as big in the early morning, if the night is warm.
You can get summer days hot enough for the wax to melt and the hive collapse.
Like Jim we use insulated lids and paint the tops white, lid vents and floor vents, so far no melt downs. This summer the best temp was 116 F.

It is amazing how bees can hold the temperatures down, even in 116 temperatures, even in direct sunlight, and keep wax from melting even with insulation. The bees are very hard workers indeed..

[FlexMedia.tv]

Again, if it is too hot inside, the nurse bees send them outside.
Jim Altmiller

I've had them do that before but not for weeks at a time. Today was the first day that wasn't in the high 80's and as you say..the nurse bees must have tolerated them today