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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: Walter Starks <walterstarks AT icloud.com>, John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>
  • Cc: Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Ask the experts
  • Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2015 16:35:20 -0400

As for the coincidence between the beginning of noticeable bearding and the removal of a super, that is something that you can expect. The super provided internal space for the bees to hang out; when you removed it, now some of them have to hang out on the outside. It is exactly like in the old days before air conditioning when folks used to hang out on the front porch during the hot summer. The bearding bees are not cooling the hive, but by being outside they aren't contributing to the heat.

If you want to make the bearding go away for some reason (it doesn't hurt anything), put a completely empty super underneath the whole stack, on the bottom board. The bees will then "beard" on the inside in the open space rather than on the outside. Don't do this when they are drawing comb or you'll likely get burr comb in the empty space, but for most of us this trick would work now, during the summer dearth.

Randall

On 7/8/2015 2:04 PM, Walter Starks wrote:
5B4A3152-FC22-4295-9FB0-4D1A40ABC713 AT icloud.com" type="cite"> Mine tend to beard like that when it’s hot. The stronger ones anyway. I don’t think there’s too much to worry about.
___________________

Walter Starks



On Jul 8, 2015, at 1:23 PM, John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com> wrote:

Yesterday, one of my hives had two deeps and three medium supers. I pulled one of the supers off because the frames were fully capped. Of the 2 supers left, one is fully drawn and 60% filled, the other was new foundation two weeks ago and is now mostly drawn out with some nectar starting to be stored. So my assumption is that the bees have room to work and rear brood.

About three hours after I pulled the super I found bees bearding the front of the hive hanging almost to the ground (less so this morning). They are also clustered in back of the hive. You can see from the pics the hive sits on a wooden beam that allows a gap between the screened bottom board and the beam - both front and rear.

It is my guess that the bees simply got hot yesterday and are bearding front and back to pull air into the hive. But the fact that this occurred right after I pulled a honey super seems too coincidental. All thoughts as to what might be going on are welcomed. This is new to me and the other hive is acting “normal.”

Front of hive
<CIMG5957.JPG>

Back of hive
<CIMG5961.JPG>

John 

No trees or bees were killed in the distribution of this message, but countless electrons were seriously inconvenienced.




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