High Temperature And High Humidity cause Bees big problems. How do I cool my bee hive?

High humidity causes many problems in beehives and makes others worse. We feed bees, take steps to protect against diseases, mites, beetles, worms and sometimes bears. High humidity can prevent the bees from cooling the hive. It can also lead to problems with mold and mildew too. 

 

Evaporative cooling is how bees cool the beehive. It doesn't work when the hive humidity is over 80%. Bees bring water into the hive and beat their wings to cause it to evaporate. As the water evaperates it cools the air much like a swamp cooler air conditioner does.  By lowering the humidity to the normal range of 50 to 60% the bees can cool the hive more easily and consume less food and use less bees to accomplish this task. With lower humidity bees do not have to resort to drastic measures like bearding to cool the hive. We litterally never get any bearding even in full sun.

 

The inside hive temperature and humidity sensor have on and off settings that are easy to adjust by the user. Also, there is a separate outside air thermostat which you can set the minimum outside air temperature that you will allow the fan to come on. This protects the hive from cold air coming in and adversity affecting the bees / brood.  

By just looking at the hive you can see the readings and know if you might have a problem that warrants taking a look inside.

The bees instinctively know how to deal with heat. On a very hot day, say 100 degrees, the hive will normally be hotter by something like 10 degees in the shade. But the bees will use evaperative cooling to bring it down with evaperative cooling to their high range of 95. When the humidity hits 80% evaperative cooling stops working becuase the water will no longer evaperate. That's when all the come home and go outside to do evaperative cooling from the out side, which is much less effective in cooling the hive. If you have our beehive fan it would have come on at 63% (you can change it to whatever you want) and then shut off again when it reaches 60%. Saving your bees from drastic measures to cool the hive. 

There is a cold air cut off safety thermostat to stop the fan from coming on when the outside air is below 88 degrees (you can change this too.) At 88 or lower the bees still have to cool the hive, but with lower outside air temperatures it is much easier for them to do so. The initail setting we have it set for 63% or higher humidity and over 95 degrees heat. You could set it higher, but they manage just fine on non extreme days, it just doesn’t get hot enough, or humid enough to require things like bearding. There are times the temperature and humidity are high enough for it to call for the fan to come on, but because the outside air is below 88 it won’t and the bees have to cool it themselves. In non extreame situations the can do it themselves quite easily. 

 

 This product was originally developed for high humidity, not heat. Because of humidity problems like mold. After some research on how evaporative cooling works, and that at 80% humidity it no longer works, helping them with the highs became the goal. It took two years of experimting with many different parts to make this version. The main concern became with helping them being able to employ evaporative cooling by keeping the humidity inside the beehive low enough for it to work. It works just like a swamp cooler air conditioner and that keeps the hive healthier by allowing their natural cooling method to be more efficient and effective. Bees burn less calories using evaporative cooling than bearding, which saves honey. It's better to have them doing things other than extreme measures to cool the hive.

Beehive exhaust fans have been around for years and many people report increased yeilds and healthier hives.