Show a pic of your setup

That is correct but I don’t think it would matter at all wihtin about 25 degrees of the equator as the sun would be on both ends of the hive over a year. The first of sunlight seems to get the bees more active and warm up the entrance that bit earlier in the day, that is the theory anyway. :thinking:
Here in sunny Queensland I have seen hives that are North, West and East facing and I don’t see any great effect, providing they get early sunshine. When placed in deep shade they are slower getting to work, a bit like us humans. :grinning:
Regards

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Here’s my setup.
By the garden Apiary

IMG_4928 IMG_4981

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Wow. @tyo_priohutomo
I think we’ve got the same supplier! :slight_smile:

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Full sun on a hive is probably what you need considering your climate but here the hives need at least afternoon shade, more so in the Summer months. I have seen fanning at the hive entrances for the past 3 months over our unusually hot Summer on most days.
Cheers Marty

Texas is a pretty durn hot place Peter, maybe more like your climate than you realize

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/48/74/5e/48745e0fd7abaac9f822c2a64c08287c.jpg

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I guess we have similar heat but here we get very high humidity along with it and that really makes for sweating up big time. I worked on my hives today just in shorts and T shirt, white socks and sneakers and by 11am all my clothes were wet with sweat., took off my watch with a black band that pissed the bees off and got some stings till I removed it and no more stings.
I am back to using pine needles in my smoker and I think it is better than cardboard, maybe a cooler smoke, but better results in my opinion.
Cheers mate.:grin:

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Great sign. Yes it gets hot here but Dallas, humidity is fairly low in the summertime. But that is again all relative. For when I lived in Florida, I made comment about the heat and humidity and I was told Dallas has very little humidity. And then friends in Colorado were blown away on how humid it was when I thought it was dry.

So, relatively speaking. In the summertime it will range between 95 and 105°F , with approximately 35 to 60% humidity. At times it will be as low as 15% or so. Florida, on the other hand, where I used to live. We never had humidity lower than 95%. And when we did we were all out playing in it :slight_smile:

For Colorado if they see 35% humidity. They think it’s raining

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How does 96% humidity sound with 34C, about 94F. The 34C was a reading in shade. In the sun it was about 40c or 104F. A long hot day at the office.:grin:

Hmm, we had 40C with 4% humidity here over the summer in Melbourne. The low humidity made the heat tolerable- and the bees very thirsty!

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Finally we have our flow hive set up at the beautiful Sunshine Coast Australia
Let’s hope the neighbours are ok with it!

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It looks like a beautiful day down there :~)
I have a couple of observations about the siting of your Flow Hive.
My first observation is: i’ve Noticed that your pathway leads past and very close to the entrance / flight path of your bees, and pretty much at what could be at head height?
…and i’m wondering how comfortable you’ll be carrying out your hive inspections sited on a raised flower bed?
On what consideration and decision did you decide to set up your hive there?

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@AuBeez the Sunshine Coast looks like a lovely spot! I’m jealous :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I’m noticing the same things that @nickg7 pointed out tho - from the pic it looks like people walking past the hive on the walkway would walk right past the hive entrance, and easily collide with bees coming and going…a good recipe for getting stung :confounded:. If it’s an unused path maybe it’ll work? Did you install a package or nucleus colony in there yet?

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:sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile: yep we are concerned but… That is the least traffic area on my tiny block! And it is easy to access via other paths. It faces the right aspect and should not bother the neighbours. It was the only spot we could put one!
We purchased a nucleus and it seems good.
Only been there 10 days
I plant out those gardens mostly for the bees.

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Having 10 hives at our last home on acreage we put a lot of thought into wether we could even have bees here or not
It’s a very small block and after living here for a short time and REALLY thinking about a location, this was it!
There is no need to walk in front of bees as there are 2 other paths to use
We may eventually block it off.
Not concerned of working at that level to access the bees. We really had no other option and we think it will work. Guess we will find out!!
Luckily it’s a quiet hive so far. In the past we have had some Agro bees!
Time will tell it’s not ideal but it was there or nowhere so we are giving it a shot.
We had excellent prize winning honey in NSW - can’t wait to see what happens here. We love our bees

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Sounds good, Trish - when do beekeepers in your area typically do a first inspection of a new colony? How’s the nectar flow around there?

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Not sure about anyone else up here being a new comer but we thought we’d wait about 4 weeks. We check weekly for SHB as unfortunately we learnt the hard way as to what damage they can do. We have found 2 which is 2 to many. We use apithor traps & diatomaceous earth in the trap
So far our biggest problem is the garden lights which they are attracted to. Plus today when we turned lights on in garage & opened the door early - in about 15 mins we had LOTS of bees inside - never had that before - have to research more on that.
Where are you located Eva?

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Nice griffin too, by the way! Sorry if I sounded critical, I took a look at your profile before replying and since it didn’t have much detail I assumed this was your first colony…happens often with Flow hives that people jump in and aren’t prepared for actual beekeeping, but if you’ve already had ten colonies you’ve done some :sweat_smile:

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I’m in the US, just outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is my fourth year keeping bees :heart_eyes:

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:blush::blush: We are off out your way soon!
Yeah bees are def not set & forget that’s for sure.
We really gave it thought, the only other spot was on our balcony but that Would have been worse.
No, I’d think these people are crazy putting in in front of a pathway too. There was just no other option
Get this, a local told me that the hives must be on a tall stand because cane toads visit hives at night, tap on the front of the hive , the bees come out & they eat the bees!! We kept this stand from our last home.

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Oh, nice - Welcome in advance then! Hope you enjoy your visit :+1:

Ugh, cane toads…here we also put hives on stands, but because of opossums and skunks. They will stand up on their hind legs to try to eat the bees, but with their bellies exposed to stings it doesn’t work out too well for them :smile: