Yesterday IUploading… added a new brood box and put it on the bottom below the existing brood box and Flow super. Today was the first day the bees have had to acclimatize to their renovated home and although they were still a little agitated they seem to go about their business normally…whew!
However I just went out to check them, it’s after dark and 19 degrees C and found quite a few of them sort of clumped outside the entrance. Thinking maybe they are too warm I slid out the bottom tray to allow a little more circulation.
Is this fairly normal, this time of night I usually find them all mostly inside the hive but we did have a warm day today. I’ve also noticed some wasps around the hive so just concerned that maybe this is defensive behavior or something else?
Looks like normal bearding to me - not a very big beard, so I wouldn’t worry. If the day was warm, it can take the hive quite a while to cool down in the evening. I bet all of those bees would be inside by morning.
Thanks for the reply Dawn, it was a warmer day than it has been for a few but not super hot. The beard was actually bigger but when I got back with my camera it had gotten smaller. This was around 12 pm. I woke up later through the night and went to see and they were still mostly there, temps around 16 C. Anyway all seems fairly normal except for me, the neurotic parent … 
Solar,
As Dawn noted… That’s normal n rather small. Not sure where my couple pix’s are but mine covered the entire front of a three super hive … Top to bottom. I posted the pix’s … It’s on this forum someplace but could see it during my quick search.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Your doing great. Enjoy the ride !
Gerald
Thanks for the encouragement Gerald. After some more research I decided to do three things 1/ remove the bottom tray (I have and sbb). 2/open the bee entrance by removing the restricter. 3/ Adding an empty brood box, no frames, with vents installed on top of the super. All these measures should reduce heat and humidity and hopefully make the bees happier and more productive. I’ll post some pics tomorrow.
Ok I couldn’t wait I went out to see the hive tonight with the new additions and am still seeing a bunch of bees outside on the porch and a bunch more under the hive clustered on the screened bottom board. Temperature is 16c or 61 degrees F.
Here’s three pics. The second one shows bees on the screen under the hive. The last one is an overview of the renovated hive with the addition of a second brood box and the ventilated top box above the super.
I had the vents left over from worm composting units I used to build and they 4" and are screened to keep ants out and vented down to keep rain out. I put one on either side. Hopefully they will do the job in the hot and/or humid weather. A work in progress…
