Changing hive entrance direction

[jeff33]

Morning all, would anyone have a good/quick tip to change a hive entrance direction by 180° please?

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Morning all, would anyone have a good/quick tip to change a hive entrance direction by 180° please?

Progressively

 

[jeff33]

Progressively

I was looking to avoid that!!

 

[rolande]

Turn the hive 180°.

If it can be left until more consistent temperatures then that might well be a good call, but healthy bees have no trouble finding the door given an initial bit of confusion.

 

[Jon.21]

Morning all, would anyone have a good/quick tip to change a hive entrance direction by 180° please?

Did this last week on 2 of my hives. Wanted to turn them a full 180 degrees and did this by turning them in the end 45 degrees every 2 days. Tried jumping to 90 deg on one of the increments but noticed that early on the day and late in the day they struggled to find entrance - maybe because less bees around entrance to show the way. Went back to 45 degree increments after that.

 

[polomadh]

Slowly is the only way. I once turned a hive, and they clustered where the entrance was :-(

 

[madasafish]

Slowly. Fast is for horses,

 

[jeff33]

Ok, thanks all. I have in the past turned it 180° in 1 go and added a top entrance above supers on the original direction. As the old bees slowly die off, the top entrance gets blocked off with all remaining bees being used to the new orientation. This is an ok solution but only works if the hive is strong enough to avoid risk of robbing, etc.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Slowly. Fast is for horses,

That depends on both horse and rider

 

[Bumble Bee Slim]

Slowly. Fast is for horses,

Tell that to the ones that I have foolishly placed a bob or two on in the past !

 

[JamezF]

Slowly. Fast is for horses,

My hive entrances are too small for horses to get into anyhow.

James

 

[F.F.Stung]

Bees can starve in March. At the moment it looks like they could starve in April 2022