Talk to me about tunnel entrances

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domino

Queen Bee
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Joined
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Location
South London
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
10
My polynucs were hammered by wasps last autumn, I don't want to be put traps up because they don't seem that effective anyway.

I made the entrance one beespace but it didn't appear to deter the wasps, not such if the round holed entrances have much space for the bees to mount a proper defence.

I've googled it over the winter and one of the ideas I've seen is to use a pipe the same diameter as the entrance to create tunnel, the one I've seen are incased in a simple plywood box.

Anyone used these, are they worth risking my thumbs to make?

Tips, comments, rude gestures welcome.
 
As above, I make my own UHE floors and just use the 6 frame shell but I do have a couple with entrance discs. Wasps were awful last Autumn but failed to bother any but one small nuc. Under hive entrance breached and wasps entering at will even when I reduced the entrance so I moved them to the garden. Wasps had found them by the next day so I constructed a tube that led to the reduced UHE and it had no effect at all.
 
I had the same problem at the farm apiary. I lost two hives and a nuc in Sept/Oct. I have never see wasps quite like that before. It was a series of sustained attacks! In hindsight, they were the weakest of any of the hives there. but I should have acted quicker to try and save them. Lesson learned.
 
I made a robbing screen out of some leftover pieces of wood and spare varroa floor. Held over the entrance with a bungee cord and saved the nuc from being invaded by wasps.
 
Tried tunnels and glass after going thru the internet for ideas. Waste of time. For the colonies that were being hit the worst I euthanised the Queen and put them into other hives to increase the numbers and fight back. I found dead wasps outside the hives and the colonies are still going strong today. I think it was an exceptional year for wasps, so I’m interested to see how this summer goes?
 
you need to be ahead of the wasps putting on the tunnels long before any wasps get near. That way wasp scouts get stuffed by the bees and the massive attack doesn't start,
 
It is easy to put a long tunnel on paynes nuc without cutting anything off.
Remove the disk and screw/attach a thick block of foam or wood over the entrance, which has a gouged/routed groove/channel on one side that runs from the point where it matches up with the existing entrance and hole all the way through where new entrance exits. The grooved side goes against the nuc wall. If you make the channel a bit serpentine you can make a very very long entrance tunnel.
 
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