I can?t say all use upper entrance but I can say many in the north use an upper and
lower entrance. Lower entrance is the main and largest entrance. Upper entrance
allow moisture to escape in winter. In spring bees are in the upper box and seem to
mostly use that entrance due to proximity. As the hive expands that switches.
(edit)
Sooo. now we have top entrances being thrown into the mix?
I assume these are additional...like, not only?
I know Ian Steppler only uses a standard entrance.. there are others
doing likewise?
Bill
"Upper entrance allow moisture to escape in winter"
There is the condition I was looking to hear... sooo now we have (so far) the
stores laden wintered colony to survive requires insulation+air change+
ventilation+humidty control... ergo "enthalpy management" for a living organism.
Getting back to "cleansing flights" it intrigues me these are observations loaded
with assumption, the main of which is we assume bees replicate Man in that
having been confined for a time the very first movement is to take a dump.
That is Man thinking, and built on the presence of many bees flying and the
obvious presence of bee feaces in the immediate area.
However.
Knowing that bees reorintate after just two days locked up and knowing
the majority - if not indeed all in a efficently managed winter colony - are
flight enabled is it worth the thought bees are merely resetting the GPS, given
it takes seconds to vent tbe biowaste yet these first flights are maintained far
longer, in fact at least as long as newly progressed forager bees running their
first orientation flight during seasonal growth?
Emerging wintered bees are all "of age" so somehow they have to restructure
themselves into the castes required for the colony to "boot up"
after an extreme dearth. Bees will still be hairy so there are pollen collectors,
others will sort themselves into nursing, housekeeping,couriers, and
guards/foragers.
Is this "cleansing flight" actually "bee thinking" in determining whom of the
mob are still capable of the prime task at hand, gathering stores?
Bill