Swarm or Chillin?

I am a new beekeeper in Michigan, US. I have one Flow Hive two. Started with a Nuc and fed the bees until early summer. The hive did not look like it was crowded until a few weeks ago. I have two brood boxes and just put my super on two weeks ago. I noticed on a hot night the bees were out on the porch. I talked to a local beekeeper and he said “No worries…they are chillin.” I checked last week for queen cells and found none. But now, more and more bees are out on the hive walls in the day and night. What are your thoughts, are they keeping cool are preparing to swarm?


Thanks,
Tom

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The top of my hive is vented on the front and back. I took out the bottom tray one day last week, to get more ventilation but when I put it back in, it had oil in the bottom to trap beetles. The next day I found about 50 bees in the oil!?! They must have been clinging to the underside of the lower vent trying to get in when I put the tray in. I have not seen any beetles in the oil lately. Can I take the lower tray out for a week or so?

I have had my tray out the last couple weeks or so due to the heat and mite treatment. Still lots of bearding but significantly less.

Looks like bearding and with the spacing over the front of the hive, I would bet that there is a fair amount of washboarding too. I wouldn’t worry about either of those - they are normal in warmer weather. Doesn’t look swarmy to me. :wink:

You can, but I wouldn’t. Bees cool the hive by very directed fanning, using laminar flow. They need a contained space to do that. If you open the floor, it destroys the laminar flow, sort of like opening all the doors and windows in your house, while you are running the air-conditioning. A bit counter-productive, and takes a lot more energy to cool the space.

Looks like your bees are happy to me.

Hope that helps.

:blush:

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Unlike refrigerated air conditioners, the hive is a swamp cooler, that is to say, is an open system that depends on the ambient temperature, humidity, and airflow. Adding less humid air while evacuating more humid air through the same opening is a big engineering challenge. I would even say, a pain in the little posteriors. :nerd_face:

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True enough, but the point is the same. If you disrupt the control of airflow, they won’t be able to cool their little butts… :wink:

Good point. But then, if the box, number and location of vents are so important for controlling airflow, how do bees manage to control the temperature when there is no box at all?

This experiment was conducted to find out what amount of bees was capable of stable thermoregulation through a wide range of temperatures. They found that the minimum was 0.5 kg, but this is not important for this discussion.
Bees were kept in a cage. Range of temperatures applied 0-40°C.

Horizontal axis - ambient temperature. Vertical - difference between the ambient and the temperature inside the nest. Look at the bottom-right part of the graph. At ~40°C the temperature of the nest was about 4°C lower than the ambient. Interesting, isn’t it? :slightly_smiling_face:

Bees on the frames create an air movement along the surface of those frames. They perform the role of fan(s) in the swamp cooler. Bees at the entrance are busy pumping water-saturated air out and less saturated air into the box to give to those inside something to work with. As the situation becomes worse inside, more fanning bees and further from the entrance we can see outside. And a small opening does not help with the air exchange at all :slight_smile: