Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Where are the bees?


It's another beautiful day here so I wandered over to the hive to watch the activity and there was a surprise waiting for me - no bees. The entrance was empty - no bees coming no bees going... uh oh.

Then I noticed some activity around back - I look around back and there they are.

There is a small space above the Varroa Screen that the bees are now using. Now I have to figure out if they are using that entrance to avoid going through the screen or if it's because it is in back where it's shady... If shade then I'll just turn them around. And of course, I need to figure out how I'm going to close up that space.

Bee Dummy Kevin

3 comments:

UU Monk said...

What do you mean "go through the screen"? What kind of varroa screen do you have that the bees themselves (and not the mites) go through?

I.e. is the back their only way out of the hive?

Bee Dummy said...

Based on that comment I did a little more digging and realized that I didn't really understand how th evarroa screen was used (NEWBEE!). Thanks for the comment - now I get it... time to rearrange the hive a bit...

UU Monk said...

You may have heard of pollen traps where the bees go through the mesh (or whatever) and the pollen is collected in the trap.

Varroa screen just let the mites fall through the bottom of the screen onto the ground or onto a sticky piece of board. They're also great for ventilation if they're left open below.

I agree that all bee equipment should come with assembly/installation instructions though.