Ventilated hive covers experiment over

Since it gets so darned hot in the summer around here a couple beekeepers I know and I came up with a different type of cover that protects the bees from hive beetles and wax moths while still allowing a good amount of ventilation into the hives.

What these covers consist of is basically a finely screened inner hive cover with a couple inch space and lots of ventilation holes.  This is then covered with a standard hive cover.  While this may have worked, I don't think the bees really appreciated the ventilation as they pretty much sealed the screening with their thick gluey propolis which negates the ventilation aspect.

Now the downside of these little ventilated chambers is they also act as a penthouse suite for all sorts of critters.  There have been black widow spiders in the past, lizards, and yesterday one penthouse suite contained three FROGS !!!.  In another penthouse suite I found many white eggs?? from god knows what.  I posted the picture on a very large beekeeper facebook group and received dozens of replies (guesses) but one person in the pacific  northwest was pretty sure they were wax moth cocoons.  Most people thought they were lizard eggs which is a possibility since I've found lizards up there also.  But the eggs seemed to be the wrong shape for lizard eggs and they were too small.  A couple people even guessed tic tacs : )  I wasn't about to taste one and find out.

mystery eggs in the ventilated hive cover

The next Florida Bee Farm project may be changing out the hive covers to more of a migratory hive cover or a hybrid inner cover with standard outer cover.  Will have to think about this some more.

Beekeeping tip of the day - Propolis

While inspecting one of the hives recently, I noticed the fine aluminum mesh screen covering the hole of the inner hive cover was almost completely sealed with propolis.  Since a feeder was being added to this hive, the screen needed the propolis removed.  The reason for this fine screen mesh is to keep out sneaky hive beetles that creep in through the top of the hive.  The other part of this anti hive beetle strategy is to seal underneath the screened bottom board with a slide out tray of  diatomaceous earth and fine mesh to allow ventilation.  Since implementing, we've gone from being infested with hive beetles to having zero in all hives during the last 3 inspections.  I didn't expect the results to be this dramatic.   It pays to NOT listen to conventional beekeeper books that are basically ignorant of hive beetles habits and their bag of tricks.     

But back to the inner hive cover with the propolis covering the aluminum screen.   Scraping the propolis is impossible and will tear the screen in no time.  Water doesn't work and using any solvents or chemicals is not an option when trying to achieve a completely organic chemical free hive. 

The natural solution actually turned out to be quite easy.  A heat gun was aimed at the wire mesh and a small container was placed underneath the inner hive cover to collect the dripping propolis.  As the propolis heats up, it drips into the collection container.  Simple and efficient.  And it only took a minute or two.