Slatted rack ?

[Mikey N.C.]

Look how bees are hanging from bottom of frames,  blocking entrance.  Is this common?

[riverbee]

i don't use slatted racks mikey but looks to me like there is a fanning party going on............

[Lburou]

Mikey, you may have some nectar in the honeycomb and the bees are using air flow to cure it into honey.  Looks normal to me too.

You mentioned slatted racks...They are optional in my view, not necessary.  The thing about slatted racks is that my queens like to hide down there.  Sometimes that is a problem.  But, I do use them when I'm setting up a hive with a Cloak board to raise queens.  Here is the paper given to us about the Cloak board when Sue Cobey talked about queen rearing at Texas A & M University a couple years ago.

You want a lot of bees in the hive to start and finish queen cells in the same hive.  The slatted rack allows more bees without the crowding that can cause swarms.  Its use might help on super hot days too and we have a lot of them here.  Other than using slatted racks for queen rearing, I don't use them.  JMO

[Mikey N.C.]

Ok , here we go ?  Is this fanning ?

[tedh]

If the temps are high down your way I'd suspect bearding.  Maybe remove the entrance reducer?  Ted

[rcannon]

They're just hanging out on the front porch,trying to cool off. Perfectly normal this time of year and a sign of a good,strong hive. If mine aren't bearing/fanning this time of year, I worry that something is wrong.

[rcannon]

You probably want to get find of that entrance reducer. Not needed now.

[Mikey N.C.]

I only left the 3 1/2 "  block to see if it's viable . guess i got to move little wood reducer

[Mikey N.C.]

There is no entrance reducer



Going into boxes tomorrow will post pics.

[Lburou]

Mikey, it will be 97 degrees F here tomorrow.  I remove the traditional entrance reducer after it warms up in spring.  Then, replace it with hardware cloth (1.5" x 12-13" of #10 screen screen or smaller for an 8 frame hive).  I screen the entire entrance except the last half or three quarters of an inch.   The bees manage air flow from there.  All wax moths and small hive beetles are forced to enter through that small opening, but air can move freely as the bees direct it.  There is rarely a traffic jam and the small entrance is easy to defend.  I'm sure to be in the minority on this, but it works for me, your results may vary. 

[SmokeyBee]

Here's mine today:

[Nugget Shooter]

99 degrees here today, no entrance reducers....

[SmokeyBee]

Nugget, did you make those racks yourself?

[Nugget Shooter]

Mikey, you may have some nectar in the honeycomb and the bees are using air flow to cure it into honey.  Looks normal to me too.

You mentioned slatted racks...They are optional in my view, not necessary.  The thing about slatted racks is that my queens like to hide down there.  Sometimes that is a problem.  But, I do use them when I'm setting up a hive with a Cloak board to raise queens.  Here is the paper given to us about the Cloak board when Sue Cobey talked about queen rearing at Texas A & M University a couple years ago.

You want a lot of bees in the hive to start and finish queen cells in the same hive.  The slatted rack allows more bees without the crowding that can cause swarms.  Its use might help on super hot days too and we have a lot of them here.  Other than using slatted racks for queen rearing, I don't use them.  JMO

Thanks for the link Lee

[Nugget Shooter]

Nugget, did you make those racks yourself?

Yes I did out of some old fencing materials we had laying around.