At 05:22 PM 5/21/98 -0600, you wrote:
 
>I would like to experiment with the 'upper entrance' notion with my hives.
>Has anyone out there used this type of setup?  I would be interested in
>hearing about the pros and cons of this.  some questions I have are:
 
Upper entrances may be nice in the winter but can cause your honey yields
to take a dramatic drop and are not necessary even in the hottest and
wettest locations but having said that they are fun and interesting.
 
If you want to do something to increase production increase the distance
between the bottom board and combs by using 3/4 or larger spacing on the
edges of the bottom that the hive body rests on. This gives the bees
clustering space and they ventilate the hive more efficiently, actually
reduces the temperature inside the hive and reduces swarming. It also keeps
more of the guard bees inside the hive and reduces the aggressive behavior.
Some put slated lath in the space to reduce brace comb to the hive floor
but that just reduces the clustering space and these brace combs are seldom
a big problem. Entrance reducers and guards may be necessary in the fall
and winter.
 
Its fun time in the bee yard and bees can be trained to use upper entrances
such as with "top" pollen traps. I had a hive one time that I trained to
land between two hive bodies and march single file to a entrance in the
back of the hive to the amazement of all visiting beekeepers and friends.
They did well with an entrance that would only admit one or two bees at a
time.
 
Because the bees place pollen as close to the entrance as they can,  with
upper entrances even with excluders to keep the queen down,  the bees will
store much pollen in the upper hive body or super. But the rub seems to
come with the nectar which they also like to store in the super above the
entrance and then work UP with it as the space is filled. With upper
entrances they seem to give it up and do not take the nectar down so you
can have nectar and even honey in the top box and the brood starving in the
bottom boxes, of course without excludes the upper entrance will insure
that the queen soon abandons the bottom boxes and moves to the top.
 
For years I used upper entrances in supers that had a small, one or two
inch of clear plastic tubing that allowed the bees one at a time to leave
but did not allow them to come back. This worked good without any negative
effects.
 
In some areas such as the California Wild Buckwheat flow that produces very
nice pollen it is possible to close up the bottom entrance and force the
bees to use an upper entrance and they will store combs half full of pollen
with a layer of  sealed honey over it which I have always thought would
make a interesting comb or cut comb pack for the Health Food Trade but know
of no one who has taken advantage of this. I am sure there other flows that
could be used to do the same thing.
 
Restricting or redirecting bees to a upper entrance can cause the bees to
try to make a new entrance and any place that is thin or allows a small
amount of light in the hive will become thinner and in time the bees will
eat their way out. In any case they will depreciate that expensive wooden
box to nothing in a season or two. They do this by actually wetting the
wood and chewing it down. In old style bee boxes with deep hand holds it
does not take much more then a season for the bees to make a new entrance.
 
Another interesting thing to do is to paint part of your bottom entrance
white and another part black. The bees will leave via the white and come
back in via the black. You can even do stripes so that the bees come and go
from several areas of the bottom entrance. You can have fun with bees by
painting an landing X or O spot above the entrance and the bees will land
on the X or O like good little pilots and follow the black painted landing
lanes to the entrance ramp. You can get them coming in by landing on the
front or side of the hive and leaving by the white painted entrance lanes.
This Bee Traffic Control is bound to increase production by avoiding those
frequent bee collisions and traffic jams resulting in a 5% to 10% increase
in production at very little cost.
 
No tricks to any of this except you should have well established hives and
a fair flow to get it working in a reasonable amount of time. There is also
some difference in how yellow bees and back bees respond to all this. The
yellow ones seem to drift to other hives when confused while the blacks can
find their own hole no matter what you do. I have always suspected these
black bees were used for so long in bee houses that they developed better
homing senses or maybe they just were late in coming out of the bee trees
to the bee hive.
 
>1. What do they use for a landing board?
 
Bees don't require any special landing board, but if you want to paint some
dark color around the upper entrance they will find it faster.
 
>2. What is the best way to create the upper entrance?
 
Bore a hole in the super or top, or several?
 
>3. Are you suppose to close the bottom entrance if using the upper entrance?
 
If you want them to use only the upper entrance you got to close it.
 
I am sure none of this helped, but if it makes beekeeping more fun for
someone then its worth the effort.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
 
He hangs out @
http://beenet.com
 
 
(c)Permission is given to copy this document
in any form, or to print for any use.
 
(w)OPINIONS are not necessarily facts. USE  AT OWN RISK!