On Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:31:38 -0600, allen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I recommend that all hive entrances be in the brood chambers or below.

100% agreement here. Lots of reasons upper entrances are bad in season. Bees tend to not 
store honey near the entrance if they can help it. The bottom of the hive is the best place 
for the entrance, IMHO. You can move boxes around willy nilly and not even interfere with 
their flight at all. Whereas, if there is an upper entrance and you set the supers off, they 
get totally confused. 

I think the various supposed benefits of upper entrances in summer are nonsense. I don't 
think it helps them to "ripen the honey faster". The one that cracks me up is putting an 
upper entrance in the supers so they "don't have so far to go". They already flew a couple 
of miles, I don't think they are too tired to walk a few extra inches to off load the honey.

Upper entrance in winter is separate issue. I don't really like auger holes but I think they 
are useful to the colony in winter to allow air circulation. A notch in the inner cover may not 
really be adequate for the type of 6 or 7 month winters we have in the north. 

plb

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