# Entrance holes



## bigbearomaha (Sep 3, 2009)

me, myself and I, use entrance holes at one end of the long side. actually, I use 3 to 4 vertical holes (usually 4) so that one hole is near the top of the side and one is near the very bottom hopefully acting as ventilation ports as well for winter.

Big Bear


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## Jaseemtp (Nov 29, 2010)

I wonder about this. I have seen pictures with entrances at the short ends. Others are in the middle, what are pros and cons to the different entrances. Sorry for the questions I am a newbie and want to get this right as I will have bees this spring.


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## mmiller (Jun 17, 2010)

I started putting my entrance holes in the end of the hive. What I didn't like was to do an inspection of the brood area I had to go through all of the bars causing more disruption to the hive than I liked. To change that I installed a follower board that was cut to stop just above the entrance holes and this works well. I am not continuing with that method. I am currently building 12 hives for next spring and have decided to go with a top entrance as described many times by Michael Bush. I like the idea of upper ventilation as well as not drilling holes. I live in the NW where we get quite alot of rain and moisture and I think that may be a good solution. I just need to figure out how to incorperate it with a pitched roof to speed up the water runoff.


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## SteveBee (Jul 15, 2010)

Hey, bigbear..........So in the winter, do you close all the holes except the top and bottom? Or all but the top? Or bottom? Or what?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I drill no holes in any equipment anymore. In TBH I just push the front bar back 3/8" for the entrance. On Langstroths I shim the lid.

I think it's important to have the entrance on the end so that brood nest will be at one end so they will work their way over winter to the other end and not leave half of their stores behind. If they start in the center they will work to one end and then they will be stuck if it doesn't get warm enough for the cluster to find their way back across all of the eaten stores to the unopened stores that were on the other side of the brood nest.


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## SteveBee (Jul 15, 2010)

Michael,

I was told by a man last week that he has a friend here in Tennessee who lost forty TBHs last year to SHB. He said that the beetles were able to get on top of the bars (thru cracks in the bars) where the bees couldn't get to them and wreaked havoc. This didn't make sense to me in that the bees can get under the top cover to the top of the bars. Maybe they didn't sense it was not "part of the hive" if he was using side entrances. Using a top entrance as you describe, it seems that the beetles would have access to the top of the bars, but the bees would, too. Is this correct?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

What the bees have access to is in the design of the hive. In my TTBH, I have a 3/8" space above the top bars and the bees can and do patrol that. In my KTBH the bees don't have access and the little ants with their larvae move in. They don't seem to hurt anything, but the bees don't have enough room to get in there.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

I built a Bush style Kenya TBH this year. I used a gap at one end for an entrance like Michael Bush. When I laid the lid directly on top of the bars, the bees started propolising the first bar to the lid by the entrance. It's a pain to try to remove the lid and have several bars sticking together and attached to the lid. Whenever I messed with the hive and went to close it up and put the lid on, I had a ton of bees on the top of the bars. Even when I tried to slide the lid across the bars to push the bees out of the way, I still ended up smashing several.

I ended up laying about three 1/4 inch thick strips of wood on top of the bars, and then laying the lid on top of those strips. The bees stopped propolising the bars to the lid, and the gap allows me to put the lid on without crushing bees. I have not seen a problem with ants getting between the lid and the top bars, likely because the bees have room to patrol that area if they wish.


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## bigbearomaha (Sep 3, 2009)

in winter, I keep the top and bottom holes open. they are 3/8" holes


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