At 01:44 PM 3/9/2004, you wrote: >By analogy, the bees in the outer shell of a cluster - especially on the >bottom of a cluster - surrounded by very cold can be weakened and killed. I'd say this likely is a true statement. In most hives outdoors, there are always a good number of dead bees inside the hive come late winter/early spring. Most of them have fallen to the bottom board, but there are usually a few on the comb, often separated from where the cluster is now. By contrast, while my indoor observation hive did cluster, shut down brood production, and did not leave the hive on cold days, etc. as I would expect with a normal hive. There were no dead bees at the bottom or on the comb. (There were 2 dead on the bottom after the longest cold spell). Several years ago when I had first started beekeeping, I got my first swarm call. I got there at dusk on a rather cool evening. Several missed the box the swarm was shaken into and eventually stopped moving. Not knowing any better I assumed they were dead and took the majority in the hive away (it was likely in the 50's by this time). The next day the homeowner called again, they found a baseball sized cluster at the same spot. The chilled bees had apparently woken up as I didn't see any on the ground anymore. Another story.. I had given a customer a jar of bees for apitherapy (ms). I had given him instructions how to best keep the bees (cool location, feeding etc.). Based on the material on the web I expected him every 2-3 weeks because 100-200 bees in a jars aren't supposed to live terribly long. Over 3 months later he shows up again. The bees had survived in a jar for over 3 months being feed a small amount of honey each day. Much longer than I would have ever guessed. Granted they were rather lethargic near the end. I don't know of any significant research on this specifically (something like the LD-50 of a lone honeybee due to temperature), nor any good research on clustersize vs cold and wintering ability (optimal cluster size by breed perhaps). Obviously some breeds (NWC for example) do better than italians with the same cluster size I would guess in part because they raise less brood though the winter (or none at all). Brood rearing significantly increases the honey consumption. Amount of pollen in the hive has also been linked to success wintering in one study I did see. I'd expect NWC to have a small advantage there too since they don't consume as much raising brood during the winter. A lot more study could be done in these areas, but they take lots of time, often have too many variables to effectively control, and there is rarely any money for these things. -Tim :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::