Hot and sunny no shade

Was wondering my bee’s are doing very well but while it is hot and sunny should I provide shade ? Because bee’s that are in the super working are on the shaded side of the super. ![image|374x500] (upload://cVFrX8RNRxwwOUp2GcDCTCa1AnK.jpeg) No shade around Hive

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Cheers

I am not sure what you categorise as ‘hot’ but there where I live in South Australia we had temps that hit 47C during summer - breaking records and killing thousands of beehives throughout the state. I lost 2 myself. The bees could handle 45C- but 47C was beyond their ability to cope.

So_ my advice is YES: shade the beehive during extreme hot weather. This is especially important for hives that are only brood without supers on them.

A simple solution os to drape a piece of shadecloth or an old sheet over the hive. I do this now with many hives and use two pieces of wood attached to the shadecloth so it doesn’t sit directly on the hive and air can pass underneath. I also weight it down at the sides with bricks or whatever.

This year- if we again have extreme hot weather I will drape sheets or towels over my hives and have them ending in buckets of water. The idea is that the sheet will wick up the water and help cool the hive better. In hot conditions bees will sit on the wet cloth and suck up the water- having easily accessible water for the bees in hot conditions is vital for their efforts to use evaporative cooling to cool the brood.

Basically bees like the internal temp of the hive around 36C- anythng above that creates work for them to cool it down. At a certain point they cannot do it anymore and the hive can die very rapidly with combs collapsing, honey leaking, and it’s just a disaster.

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I live in San Diego county and it has been upwards of 100 degrees they are fanning and working hard. I will add some shade. Thank you for your comment and advise

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Make sure they have some water nearby too. Although I am coastal San Diego and quite a bit cooler than you, I have a poultry waterer with large pebbles in the water tray for the bees to land on. They love it on hot days. :wink:

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If the bees are bearding and fanning air into the hive then take that as a sign that the brood is over heating so at least providing some shade and make sure there is a source of water for them, they will put water droplets at the hive entrance and fan air over it to cool the air. Even hanging shade cloth over the hive is a positive step.
Cheers

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