Top entrances and dead bees.

[CapnChkn]

I've been looking at top entrances, and I have been wondering everyones experiences with bees getting the dead ones out. 

In the KTBH I built, I had a really bad robber problem.  So bad in fact they've killed the queen and demoralized the home-bees.  I set up a robber screen on the top bars by replacing one of the bars with one modified to an entrance space under the screen, and the bees began to carpet the bottom.  The robbing has slowed down somewhat, I removed the screen and the syrup consumption went from around a half to a full quart a day.

In all the Robber Screen designs I've seen, the access is at the top of the screen.  I've seen posts where the poster claims his screens stay on until the bees go dormant in the fall.  In the one wild tree I've seen, the bees covered the split in the trunk with propolis until there was only a half inch hole around 6 inches from the base of the hollow.

So the question here is, will the bees clear out the dead through a top entrance?  Is the fact that my bees are queenless a factor in the bodies piling up?

[Culley]

I looked at a wild tree yesterday with a pretty large entrance. I could see the combs by looking up into the gap.
I've read that some strains of bees build propolis all over the place, including closing most of the entrance with it, but then people bred bees that don't deposit so much propolis.

How big is the entrance on the top bar hive?
Sounds like it might be a weak colony? What about combining it now that it's become queenless..
Michael Bush has written on his website that bees can clear out dead bees through top entrances.

[CapnChkn]

Thank you Culiz!  I gave up on Beesource because those guys directly answered only 10% of my questions.

These poor bees are gonners.  There's only about a thousand left, I got them in this hive 30 days ago and they haven't built more comb.  No brood, stored a little sugar water, never foraged any pollen, and don't seem to guard the entrance at all.  It'll be cold here pretty quick, I don't have any other hives, and don't have the money for a little nuc.

Here's photos of the setup I was referring to, the robbers have come back and I have the robber screen over the hole in the body, with all the reduced entrances on the bottom.

Well, never mind, the bot won't let me post photos until I have a number of messages.  The hole in the body is 7/8" (22mm) dia.  The Robber Screen entrances are about one bee-width, 10mm wide by 6mm deep (3/8 w, 1/4 d).

[Culley]

Are there any drones flying where you are? It may be too late for them to make an emergency queen and get her mated.
Are there still eggs in the hive? Have they started any queen cells?

I suppose if you and your bees can figure out the queen thing pretty fast and it's warm enough to keep raising brood, you could keep them alive by feeding and making the entrance small.
Good luck.

[tecumseh]

even in a traditional hive you can totally close off the bottom entrance and the undertaker bees are quite capable of dragging dead bodies up thru 7 layers of boxs thru a queen excluder to toss the dead bodies outside.

the bodies pilling up are a matter of robbing and will continue until the hive is dead.  since the robbing has now totally confused the organization of the hive the undertaker bees have gone on to better employment.  the sugar water feed has likely encouraged the situation.

just to correct a bit of misinformation (or another strange notions passing itself off as information).  As I think you have noticed come the fall of the year some bees will almost totally close off the hives/nest entrance with propolis.  if you watched hives in number you would notice that some hives propolize more than other.  Some quite a bit and some very little.  At one time their was TALK about breeding a bee that didn't propolis.  As far as I know the effort never went beyond the TALK phase.  At least (at that point in time) folks had played around with breeding for a stingless bee (did that) as well as a number of other strange variations on the theme and the results of these had pretty much convinced folks that 'the down side' of these kinds of arbitrary genetic programs need to be throughly considered.     

[CapnChkn]

Well, Hello all!

Cullz, like I say, they are gonners.  No eggs, No brood, No queen, No storing of food.  Just a bunch of sad suicidal bees.  I have no other hive, they absconded from a Langstroth that had SHB.  Think "Rotting Corpse."  I had noticed the robbers hanging around during the middle of the day when they were in their decomposing hive bodies, but didn't think (I am actually fairly new to all this, though my statements seem to contradict.)  I set them up with a robber screen, too late.

Tecumseh, Thank you for the bee info.  I could only imagine they would carry the dead ones out by sheer muscle (as they haven't evolved an engineer class yet.) but looking at the bottom of this hive and seeing Bumblebees, Wax moths, SHB, and sundry bodies after a months time made me wonder.  The robbing has stopped, the robbers come and go without fighting if I take the screen off.

As for the old Bee Tree, It was in Ocala Florida in April 1982.  The cavity was about 2 feet off the ground, and the entrance was covered with a gray taffy-like substance that covered everything except a small hole.  I peeled that away trying to move the bees into a hive I built with, I swear, scrap lumber, railroad spikes, and a "buck" saw.  I got fairly proficient at the hive building ("The bees will fill all the cracks with Propolis...") but not the beekeeping.  I finally covered their hole with one of the boxes, stuffed rags in all the gaps, and headed further north.

[kbenz]

they carry them out of my top entrance with no problems

[BjornBee]

Studies have shown....

*Bee prefer bottom entrances over top entrances if given a choice.
*Bees use the trapped heat for early brood rearing.
*Bees will not choose a site with light from above.

Knowing bees backfill from above, and force the queen lower throughout the summer, then eat their way back to the top where they raise brood in winter in the upper half of the chamber, then top entrances go against everything bees desire and select in nature.

I could see a few extra entrances in supers for extra ventilation as we manipulate bees into colonies many times larger than they would achieve by themselves in feral colonies, but for the actual brood chamber, I find no rationale or justification for upper entrances.

If you didn't touch a hive for a long period of time, bees will propolize everything very tight. If it were not for beekeepers breaking the seal on every visit, bees would keep an airtight hive.

Except for some made up reasoning for upper entrances such as "critter control", to which this could be done without top entrances, I have never seen a good reason for year round top entrances, which goes against what bees desire for optimal production and survival.

[AllenF]

With only a thousand bees left and so late in the season, do you have another hive you can combine them with or are they a total loss?

[greenbtree]

He mentioned that he had no other hive.  I can relate.  My son and I started this year with a hive each that we bought as going hives.  His came along well, mine just dwindled.  Nothing I did helped.  No brood, no eggs. They didn't want syrup, I couldn't find a queen, but they wouldn't accept a new one, they just wanted to sit there and act miserable.  I eventually gave up and tried combining them with my son's hive and even THAT didn't work, my son's bees summarily executed them and threw them out the front door.

I have picked up some swarms and done two cutouts so I am no longer beeless - but one of my best swarm hives just absconded due to ants. 

Keep plugging away - the learning curve is no fun sometimes, but hey, most stuff is like that.  Get on some swarm removal lists for next year.

JC

[Michael Bush]

The number of bees on the bottom board of a hive are more an indication of the available workforce than anything else.  If there are enough bees they remove them.  If there are not they don't.  Regardless of top or bottom entrances.  I have watched house bees many times in my observation hive hauling dead bees all over the hive before finally going out the entrance, which is at the bottom.  I think house bees often don't even know where the entrance is, but hauling bodies out the top is not a problem.  I have cleaned dead bees off the bottom board in my spring inspection for decades on both top and bottom entrances and see them clean in mid summer on both top and bottom entrances.