The Heat Wave Is Really Stressing Our Bee Hives

The last seven to ten days of temperatures in the mid to high nineties F - along with humidities in the 80s 90s range has not only affected us humans but it is really stressing the bee hives up and down the coast. An old friend in New Jersey who raises bees called me when he saw my earlier 'bearding' photos and told me to call him and in the course of the ensuing conversation when I described the usually normal behaviour, he told me that our hive was over heating and probably melting wax (the bees were hauling out dead or dying larvae) GET SHADE ON THEM IMMEDIATELY was the advice.  The photos here and maybe to follow show my effort this morning to both head off a similar occurrence on the non-bearding hive and to do damage control for the bearding hive.  It catches the sun earlier in the morning by about an hour (strange and so close together) and then gets the sun as long as the other for the rest of the day AND in addition has a metal covering at the top which supposedly reflects the sun and heat but it gets unbearably hot to the touch (I plan to paint it white when we get through this present problem).  Although he suggested 'brushing' the bearded bees into a bucket and then dumping them in the top Carol and I decided to wait a bit longer - and I have already observed the top of the beard bees crawling in and onto the top inner cover now that I have raised the outer cover and shaded it.  Stay tuned.