>To keep with the same thread, I am curious to know at what specific time the
>beekeepers shut the upper entrance in the spring and force the bees to use
>the lower entrance.  What motivates the choice?
 
 When I first started beekeeping again here in Canada, I did as the locals
did."When in Rome, do as the Romans". So we had holes augered in the top
super as a top entrance, but found it very ineffective. It is in the wrong
place, as it leaves dead air in the place where the most moisture will
accumulate.
        As somebody else has pointed out, it allows supercedure queens to
get back into the hive via a top entrance.In the past we have had two queens
in the same hive, one in the honey super and one below the queen excluder.
        An area few consider, too many entrances under certain circumstances
will allow nasties access,ie, wax moths. I believe this is why we don't have
a wax moth problem. We see enough of them around, but have managed to keep
them out.
        Year round top entrances will allow bees to store pollen in the
honey supers, leading to cloudy honey. Another problem I noticed, if you
take off the top box to work on the bottom box, you get lots of bees in the
air trying to find that top entrance. These bees haven't been smoked and can
get real nasty!!
        Vladimer made a good point, it would shift the brood rearing down
towards the bottom box, expanding the brood area.
        Since we modified our Langs we no longer have these problems.Our top
entrance is 2" by 3/8 right in the inner cover, at the highest point of the
hive, arranged so we can open and close it at will.
        We close them as early as we can. Usually when we do spring
inspection, the bottom board is cleaned, a larger bottom entrance provided,
and finally we close the top entrance. You will get a lot of bees trying to
gain access in the top, but by evening they have orientated to the new
entrance.
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