>My son (a windmill engineer)

Well, there's our help, Stan.  Could you please ask your son to calc the R
value of honey from White's figure.  Even with Juanse's helpful table, I
still come up with what appears to be an impossibly low figure.

>it is the airspace between the combs that provides most insulation.

I doubt it, Stan.  That airspace is packed full of bees.

The cluster of bees is surrounded top and sides with honey, with bees
tightly packed in the beespaces.  Any heat would have to conduct out through
the honey of the comb outside the cluster, where it could then convect up
through the empty bee space.  So the R-value of at least the first comb of
honey would be very important.

Resistance from further combs and air spaces would depend largely upon loss
of heat by convection to the lid--whether it was insulated or not.  Any comb
below the cluster would likely have much less effect on heat loss.

Please let us know what your son calculates--or does anyone simply have a
measurement for the R-value of cold honey?

Randy Oliver

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