Advantages to letting them in on top

[shakerbeeman]

From my reading of past posts it seems to make a lot of sense to allow entrance to the hive through the top. The elimination of critters is very desirable specially around my place where I feed the birds and have an excess of mice. As I am making several new hives I would love some input on this if possible. To me it seems a good way to go.

[thegolfpsycho]

You should probably go to Michael Bush' site.  He has synopsized a great deal of beekeeping knowledge, along with his own ideas and explanations.  He is a big proponent of top entrances.  FWIW, they are pretty simple to make.  Just prop the top open with some sticks, or go fancy with some cedar shingles and cut them the thickness you want.

[shakerbeeman]

Thankyou golfpsycho,

Sounds as if maybe you think they are a good idea. I did read with interest Mike Bush's site and subscribe to his mentality. Why work harder than need be to get the same end result. My thought is to design a top that allows the 3/8 entry area and lips around the stack as to be a bit more weather proof. I suspect I will need weight for the wind anyway.

[thegolfpsycho]

If you feel you have to engineer something, why not just knock out the whole endpiece on your inner cover?  That would give you almost as large an entrance as the built in bottom one without having to build anything.

[Understudy]

I use top entrances.


My reasons are slightly different than Michael's. But Michael's reasons are valid. I use mine with  screen bottom boards. Since I live in South Florida heat is a major issue. I use screen bottom and a slanted top entrance. This causes a good deal of air circulation. I find the number of bees working on cooling my hives are less than half of what they are with a solid bottom board and a bottom entrance. There are few other reasons but this is an important one to me.


Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Brian D. Bray]

I built SBB's and used the reversable BB as the tops or make my own.  Top entrances. Easy way to modify a migratory top is to knock of the end bar and add 2 3/8" shims down each side.