Yesterday in unseasonable 69º weather I cleaned out the hives.  As reported earlies the cluster in hive1 never made it out of the bottom box.  Hive2 (the parent of hive1) faired a little better, and had made it to the second box.  I found the queen in that hive as well on comb. 

One characteristic of both hives was the large number of bees that were on the bottom board.

I’m changing my previous theory on the loss.  My theory on wintering a hive is this.  The mantle bees in a cluster will fall into a coma and drop from the cluster below their torpidity temperature, that is a fact.  This clearly happens throughout the winter at certain times as during high cold winds and extreme cold.  As the cluster loses bees to this process, the remaining cluster must generate more heat since the insulating mantle is now thinner.  As the loss of mantle bees continues, the core of the cluster consumes all food available to it and still has this higher and higher heat requirement.  The cluster clearly cannot break to move to new stores in these cold temperatures, and the core’s temperature begins to drop, and all bees eventually freeze.

I have no idea if this is correct, it’s only the “Force” telling me there’s any truth to this, but I’ll continue.

Many people have written and/or repeated, “The bees don’t heat the hive, just the cluster.  The air temperature inside the hive is the same as outside.”  That’s a bunch of hooey.  The bees don’t *intentionally* heat the air inside the hive, but unless mantle bees are a 100% efficient insulator, they cannot defy the laws of the thermodynamics, and still air inside the hive is warmer than outside. 

More Force…One way of allowing survivability in a high-wind environment is to simply have an extremely large cluster.  A large cluster allows for mantle bees to die but for the cluster to have enough insulation to continue eating sparingly.  Another method of course is to think about the laws of thermodynamics in the hive with regards to things like air movement (this is more Force for me).

With that in mind, if the air inside the hive can be made nearly still while still allowing a little ventilation, and if the hive is insulated, the heat generated by the cluster will warm the air inside the hive even in high winds and cold.  This should allow the mantle to have a much higher survivability, meaning the core bees will have to heat less, meaning they will eat less, meaning they can last longer periods between which the weather permits them to move to new stores.

I’ve already begun thinking about what to do about this for next winter.  A sealed bottom board and small top entrance are in high consideration.  An insulation wrap of XPS foam board may also come into play.  By next winter I’ll also have temperature sensors in the hives at the house as well so I can monitor what’s really going on in there, at least to a certain extent.

• «Previous Post
• Next Post »

---