Hi Folks, I noticed some bees chewing on the wooden entrance reducer. Do they really want a larger entrance? It still gets cold at night - maybe they are being fooled by warm daytime temperatures? Anyway, I cast a wax entrance reducer. Is this a crazy idea? The idea being, if they really want to make the opening bigger, it shouldn’t be too hard for them. Or will they just think “oh great, wax!” and chew it all away for use in comb? See photo. There’s not much activity as evening is approaching.
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BTW, that bee is sitting on a pretty rough cut angled landing board I made. I noticed quite a few of them had trouble getting a grip on the varnished edge of the Flow bottom board - they kept slipping off!
Hi Steven, that’s a pretty novel idea of using a wax entrance reducer. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. It’ll melt if real hot sun hits it. I wouldn’t be too concerned about a landing board. I never use them as a rule. The entrances I make myself are flush with the supers.
Good stuff. Let us know how things go.
I use foam and sometimes they throw the whole thing out
It’s a very windy day in Melbourne - the bees are still moderately active. They seem to be accepting the wax entrance reducer - there is little or no chewing going on. Tomorrow I intend to replace the left half of the reducer (now still wood) with wax too. Will keep you posted.
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