Upper Ventilation: Helping Bees Beat the Heat 🔥

Summer heat can stress your bees, making the hive work harder than it should.
A quick and easy fix is to give the hive a bit of upper ventilation.

Here are some simple tricks:

• Ventilation gap: Slip a small stick (a popsicle stick works great) between the inner cover and outer cover. This creates a narrow gap that allows hot air to escape through the upper vent in the inner cover without exposing the hive to robbers. Use this method only on strong hives with at least two boxes—weak colonies are more vulnerable to robbing, so the following suggestions are better suited for them.

• Dead air space: Take it a step further by adding an empty third box on top. This creates dead air space, helping to buffer extreme temperatures. Be sure to remove it before winter.

• Coroplast shade: Another easy way to cool hives is to place a brick on top of the hive, then set the coroplast slide from your screened bottom board on top of the brick. To keep it in place, add another brick on top. The shade this creates over the lid helps cool the hive effectively.