Ventilation of Stingless Bee Hives
Something that I have been excited about is the ventilation of stingless bee hives.
I thought I would do a little video about the topic to explain a little better.
Switch the “CC” button on base of video for subtitles.
Tips and tricks for good ventilation
- Drill both vent and entrance holes the same size.
- Drill the primary vent hole as high as you can in the top box of your hive. This helps remove the build up of radiant heat.
- Don’t drill small vent holes keep vent holes large, 10mm minimum.
- Help your bees remove cadaghi from inside the entrance hole (Around the hole is ok to leave there).
- Place a small screen over new vent holes to give time for bees to build their own screen. Later you can remove it.
- Two vents won’t hurt your bees.
- Cadaghi seed might not hurt your bees but it can restrict airflow.
- Eductions and hives with tube attachments will suffer less airflow, shade hives during long term connections over summer.
What bees do with provided vent holes
When you have provided your bees with good ventilation outlets, the bees will actually recognize the hole as being a vent hole. They will post some guard bees at this vent hole and stretch a special tunnel out inside the hive. This tunnel is different from an entrance tube and often diminishes into 3-5 smaller holes that a bee can comfortably fit though (about 4mm in diameter each) Overtime the bees will place protective resins around the vent hole like the one above or place a screen mesh across it like bees from the Austropleabeia family do.
Did you know: Many fly blown hive problems are due to heat, moisture and or restricted airflow. By the time you see maggots the problem has already been present for quite some time.