a randy Oliver snip followed by > my comments.. 
Could others with bored entrances in upper boxes please chime in -- do you
observe that bees fill them with propolis, or not?

>These comments may be a bit long....

>First off the degree to which bee produce and use propolis is somewhat to highly dependent on genetics.. I seem to recall the Caucasian were known to propolis heavily.  All the stock here is highly diversified and consequently what may appear by color to be Italian in origin may actually represent a good deal of Caucasian stock. I have some hives that propolis heavily and some that do not... the ones that do seem (appear to me) to have less problems with the small hive beetle.  As a reference here to genetic diversity you can review Danny Weaver's comments about the kinds of bees and queens grown here in central Texas over the past 100 years. 

>During my days of working for commercial beekeeper almost all bored holes in their boxes (typically somewhere below the hand hold) I have never see bees propolis up those holes.

>A bit early in my current cycle of rearing bees (going back say 20 years) I had fairly standard bottom boards (hand made with no landing board) and in about October you could notice perhaps half the hives would begin to propolis the entry. In some cases if you let these go and did not put in a entry reducer they would literally close off the entire bottom entry with only about 2 holes the size of a bee as an exit/entry.

>Currently my bottoms and tops are identical (they are all made to be both used as bottom and tops) and these typically have a 3 inch slop on the front side.  With these the bottom and the top slot is somewhat closed off with propolis in the fall of the year in about 50% of the hives < again with approximately 2 passages for bees to use as an exit entry.

>As to condensation.... what I see here is in single or single and half boxes when 1) the primary cluster is at the top of the box and 2) when I am feeding syrup (always 1 to 1) there will be a small splash of water that condense right above the cluster on the inside of the top cover.  I assume this splash is about the cluster utilizing the syrup (this is also reported to raise the cluster temperature somewhat... ie about 6 degrees).  Since we have a minimum of freezing weather the splash never accumulates to form ice. I would guess in a colder climate this 'splash' could potentially form ice and then thaw and then drip ice cold water directly on top of the primary cluster.

>The following was reported to me by one of the Apiary inspectors right at the time Dr Rangel was hired < second hand information by the source is extremely reliable.  Prior to Dr Rangel arrival there was a bee entomologist and she left 3 hives behind a tree line at the bee lab.  Evidently sometimes in the several years in which they had sat there (totally unattended) the top of one hive had blown off and the bees had created their own top cover by covering over the top with a solid sheet of propolis.


Gene in Central Texas...  

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