Top-Bar Beekeeping: Organic Practices for Honeybee Health by Les Crowder

Author:Les Crowder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing

Figure 5-4. A freshly capped honeycomb against a background of summer’s signature sunflowers.

Bearded Hives

When it is warm and there are flowers blooming, worker bees begin hanging out in masses around entrances or holes in the hive, especially in the evenings. Often this phenomenon makes the beekeeper worry that the colony has grown too big for the hive and that the bees are about to swarm. However, if there is still space in the hive to build new combs and no sign of queen cells, there is nothing to worry about. The bees are hanging outside the hive so that their body heat and humidity will not add to the heat and humidity in the interior of the hive. It is more difficult for the colony to ripen honey when heat and humidity are too high. Bearded hives are generally happy hives, and bearding is not necessarily a sign of imminent swarming.

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