Entrance size too small?

[merylvingien]

I shifted my first swarm into a full size hive on thursday as they had fully drawn all 5 frames, added a further 4 frames and a couple of dummy boards.

Since then the weather has been **** and they havent had much chance to get out properly till today.
I have been taking a look whenever i go out in the garden and most of today has seen a mass of them all hangin out at the entrance. Its not normally like this, so should i be thinking of giving them a bigger entrance now, or is this normal behaviour?

 

[jezd]

perfect, gap of 2" in my opinion, if on OMF then they can be left like this for season

 

[merylvingien]

There still on a solid floor at the mo, but i will probably change this over in a week or two if/when the weather stabilises.

So i will just carry on as is!

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Mike a]

perfect, gap of 2" in my opinion, if on OMF then they can be left like this for season

I'm doing this with 3 of 4 colonies.
The 4th colony has entrance block removed as they are very strong.

 

[RoofTops]

Hanging out of the door can be sign of overheating, the sudden loss of a major forage or a possible swarm soon. If you have solid floors and the hive is in the sun think how hot it will get in there later in the summer. They will try and cool it with water and fanning but a wider entrance might be better.

 

[Onge]

Looks fine to me.

Like others have said, if its on a solid foor then if it gets hot (yea right any sign of summer) It will need to be opened up.

On an OMF leave it as it is.

 

[merylvingien]

Overheating? Errr! I dont think so.

I am concerened about popping them on a mesh floor till it does warm up, yesterday was dismall, cold wet, i am more grumpier than the bees...

Today was "ok" but still not hot. Anyway, they are not in direct sunlight for any length of time, in fact its a pretty nice spot, light shading from trees and not in direct wind.

I was just curious as to why they running around in gangs about the entrance. I havent seen them do it before now.

 

[VEG]

The bees will be fine on open mesh floors. Most peoples bees came through the winter with temps down as low as -17