>A failure to provide an upper entrance for ventilation is a recipe for
>disaster...sooner or later. (There must be a reason why feral colonies
>almost always have their brood nest and honey storage area BELOW the
>entrance.)
I agree with the need for an upper entrance for ventilation/cleansing flights but have a question about the sentence in parenthesis above: is this a matter of bees' preference or the geometry of some feral housings? I have seen feral colonies build down from the entrance if the entrance was at the 'ceiling' of the chamber. When hiving packages/swarms, they always start at the top.
The reason I ask is because I have seen ads in bee magazines for a hive without the bottom entrance. The entrance was in the middle of the hive stack. Has anyone tried this approach?
Thanks,
Waldemar
Long Island, NY
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