Yesterday I when I pulled the drone frames out of the hives, I discovered the most populous hives were dripping wet under the cover. I had tried to prevent this by using upper entrances, but apparently the one-inch holes I installed were not big enough to keep the interior dry in spring.
Part of this problem is due to the weather; it has been rainy and cool for the last several weeks so it’s hard to keep anything dry. It’s also partly due to the populations in the hives—lots of bees mean lots of respiration and also lots of nectar collection. Everything, it seems, gives off moisture.
Moisture in the hive is not a good thing. Disease organisms, fungi, and molds thrive in moist environments and, in cold weather, water droplets can drip down on the bees and chill the brood. Proper ventilation is important for bee colonies year round. Bees can do really well in cold temperatures, but cold and wet is a different story.
I manage to keep my hives dry all winter with one lower and one upper entrance, but this time of year when the populations are huge and nights are still cold, it’s a bigger problem. So yesterday I removed the inner covers and replaced them with screen covers that have half-inch shims along the short ends. The shims prevent the outer cover from laying flat against the screen. The damp air can flow from the hive, up through the screen, and out the half-inch space on either side.
These screens greatly improve airflow but prevent insects—such as foreign bees or wasps—from coming in through the top.
After that was all done, I fed drone brood to the chickens—the ultimate in recycling! The nurse bees eat the pollen so they can secrete royal jelly and feed the larvae, and the chickens eat the larvae so they can lay the eggs which we can eat for breakfast—along with toast and honey, of course. What a system.
Rusty
This 11-year-old Araucana hen thrives on drone brood.
Do you use screened bottom boards? I do, and have never had a moisture problem. My hives sit at the edge of my lawn, and are shaded by trees a lot of the day. I even leave the SBB’s in over the winter (in Massachusetts).
Steven – http://stevensbees.blogspot.com
Hi Steve,
Yes, I should have mentioned that. I do use screened bottom boards and my hives are elevated so the air can easily flow up through the screens. Here in the Puget Sound region we are blessed with a rainy season that lasts nine months, October through June. It stops raining about the fourth of July and then we have zero, none, nada rain for three months, during which time everything dries to a crisp.
We probably don’t have much more total rain than you do in Massachusetts, put it just kinda rains all the time, enough so that mold and moss grow everywhere. We call it the “mold and mildew capital of the new world.”
Anyway, I think that is the main problem with keeping the hives dry, and it’s why I experiment a lot with screens and multiple openings. My bees have done well over the years, but I never open a hive without a bucket of rags so I can wipe down the inner cover.
I appreciate your comments, however. I’m glad to hear you use screened bottoms over winter. I try to encourage that but lots of people are afraid to.
Rusty
“Drone brood”? What’s that? Drone’s are male bees and brood are the larvae, right? So is “drone brood” larvae that will become drones? I get why the hens want them,
but why don’t you want them?
Hi Anneke,
Thanks for writing. You are right, drone brood is brood that will grow into drones. As for why I don’t want them, read about reducing varroa mites by drone trapping http://www.honeybeesuite.com/?p=727. Drone brood produces many more mites than worker brood. It’s nothing personal.
Could you use a moisture board in the hive to help with the excess moisture?
Michelle,
What’s a moisture board? I’m clueless.
I am having such terrible issues with the moisture and mold, too. I have been propping open my lid with a stick to get some air flow, which is helping a little bit but provides no protection from any foreign marauding creatures. I already have a screened bottom board and an elevated hive. I go back and forth about whether I should get a screened inner cover, too.
If this rain doesn’t end soon………. I don’t know! Everyone’s going a little bit crazy.
I have one hive in particular that is just dripping inside. I have a screened bottom board and a screened inner cover. I was wiping out the lid every other day, then I decided I’d split the hive in two. I checked it yesterday after it was split for a week, and now both halves are dripping! What’s going on with these guys, I have no clue. The rest of my hives are not a problem. Weird.