# Best entrance design?



## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

I am building a kenyan tbh and am wondering about ventilation and where to put the entrance. Also, do you put in some kind of bee escape so bees stranded on the top of the top bars after inspection can get out from under the lid? I like Buckbees design of a side entrance, so you can use follower boards when the colony is small, but I see lots of folks using a front entrance. do you then drill holes in the follower board? Also, is the entrance better off higher or lower? Any comments welcome, Thanks, Paul.


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## TX Ashurst (May 31, 2005)

*WARNING: this is an opinion.*

If you have an open space under the top and it fits bee-tight over the hive, then you'd want a way for bees to escape, unless you make sure you don't leave them on top of the top bars. I sometimes put my tops on while bees are still there, but my tops don't contain any space - they're just flat pieces of well-painted plywood. You could use a bee brush (or draftsman's brush) to clear them off if you want and not have the extra step of making an escape.

If you use an escape, make sure it is bug tight. You don't want hornets or wasps moving into that nice space and giving you a big surprise when you open your hive!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I've never drilled a hole for an entrance. I've just left the front bar back 3/8" and let them use that as the entrance. It solves a lot of problems, not the least of which is skunks and mice.


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## buckbee (Dec 2, 2004)

*TBH entrances*

I have experimented with entrance heights - in fact just the other day I shot some video of what happened to a high entrance in one of my hives. The bees propolized a 1 1/4" hole down to the size of a single bee and decided to use a small gap in the floor that I had accidentally left as an entrance!

I know MB justs leaves out a bar as an entrance, but I have never yet known bees to prefer a higher to a lower entrance, given the choice.

I use light, bee-tight roofs on my most recent designs and just make sure not to trap bees. A better alternative might be those escape cone vents you used to see on WBC hives - you probably don't get those in the USA, but Google 'WBC hive' and you will see what I mean (not just 'WBC' or you get a load of boxing stuff...)


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Bees prefer to close off light, so anything high up is more likely to get propolized than anything down low. Not because of draft, but because of light.


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## buckbee (Dec 2, 2004)

Hi MB,
Do you have any sort of follower or light excluder next to your top entrance to get around this?


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## TX Ashurst (May 31, 2005)

This probably fits in with what Buckbee said. I have a TBH at my house with a screen bottom. I only had 1/4" hardware wire at the time so I put on two layers, offset a bit. I drilled 1.25" holes near the top on each end. They never used the entrance hole farthest from the comb, so I taped it shut. They started out using the front hole, though. Over time they've learned to get through the screen bottom and that has become the primary entrance.

The front hole has very interesting propolising. They have built two walls, each about half closing the hole from the side, one at the outside and the other at the inside end of the hole. So they have to walk a serpentine path to use that hole. A few bees still come and go that way, but there are ALWAYS guard bees there.

They've been in this hive for three years, so I think that's how they are going to want it to stay.

On the other hand, if you look at feral colonies you see all kinds of deals. They might prefer a low entrance, but it certainly doesn't bother them enough to keep them from moving into a tree cavity where they use the hole at the top of the space. Or the bottom. They use what's available and convenient.
So my opinion is that the entrance location matters a lot more to beekeepers than it does to bees.


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## buckbee (Dec 2, 2004)

TX Ashurst said:


> The front hole has very interesting propolising. They have built two walls, each about half closing the hole from the side, one at the outside and the other at the inside end of the hole. So they have to walk a serpentine path to use that hole. A few bees still come and go that way, but there are ALWAYS guard bees there.


That also fits with what Michael says - it sounds like they have figured out how to make a useable entrance that keeps light out.

It seems to me that they like to have an entrance that gives access to more than one comb - hence going in underneath, which allows them to go between several combs. This is why I now use three entrance holes in the sides of my hives.


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## allrawpaul (Jun 7, 2004)

*Re;*

Thanks for all the input! I decided to make my roof with open eves so that stragglers on the top bars can get out easily. Varmints,Hornets and spiders are not a big problem here. I put in 6, 3/4" holes for entry on one of the ends, with 4 of them over a landing pad 1" up from the screened bottom, and the other holes are 2" down from the top, 3" from center on each side. The top entry you describe MB, would clash with my roof design and lead to my crushing bees and seems less convenient for working the bees as they must be getting between the top bars more. I want the entrance to the south and I would like to work the bees from the side and not block the sunlight with my shadow so I chose the end entrance. Its all painted up now. Just have to groove and wax the top bars, put a package together or catch a swarm, and put em in. Thanks for all the help! I used your basic design, buckbee, thanks for posting it! Cant wait to start topbar beekeeping! I'll let you know how they like their entrances.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Do you have any sort of follower or light excluder next to your top entrance to get around this?

If they are using the entrance they won't propolize it, but they will propolize it if they are not.

I just let them figure it out.


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