> > >Some thoughts - bees cluster to keep warm by RADIANT heat Or more precisely, kept warm by conserving the metabolic heat produced. This heat is exchanged largely by bee-to-bee conduction. By clustering, they minimize 1. Convective heat loss by body-to-body contact (very dense) to slow convective air movement within the cluster (very little atmosphere exchange between the center of the cluster and the air outside the cluster) 2. Radiant heat loss by minimizing the temperature of the outer layer of bee abdomens (bees are able to shunt heat in their bodies to their heads), and by minimizing the surface area of the cluster. Randy Oliver *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at: http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm