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"long" PVC entrance to beehive?

 
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I was thinking about getting bees. However I know my neighbors would be a pain if they saw the boxes. So I got to thinking I might be able to solve several problems I have at once. I am planning on setting up a "large" fish tank in my basement. I think I could rig a system to mount the bees above the fishtank. That boottom of the beehive to be a swinging gate door so dead stuff and mites would fall for the fish to eat. However I don't want a lot of bees flying around my basement. So I would like to route an entrance pvc pipe through a ground level window. Then the neighbors wouldnt even notice Do you think the bees would travel through a PVC pipe to enter/leave their hive? Would they use an entrance at the top of their hive (all designs I have seen the entrance is at the bottom.)

If that is a no go. I was thinking about screening of the fish tank and beehive with no special setup other than leaving the windows open when it is warm enough. The fish tank would be serving an aqauponics setup for my winter veggies and peppers that won't grow natively in my area, that I waste too much money buying.

Do you know of anyone to have ever try something like this?
 
steward
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Location: woodland, washington
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a couple of problems: your basement is likely to stay warm enough that the bees would not go dormant over the winter when there is no forage. so they would both fly out into cold weather and die, and starve.

you would also have a problem when it came time to harvest, which you wouldn't be able to do through your PVC entrance.

I think you might be better off disguising hives out of doors. while a lot of folks and nosy neighbors would recognize a standard stack of Langstroth boxes, a fancy paint job or hiding behind some other structures or plants could be enough to fool people. there are also quite a few other styles of hive that are much less recognizable to folks other than enthusiasts of those styles.
 
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Location: Seattle, WA, USA
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Search on observation hives. I have seen designs that incorporate tubes.
 
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