>Looking for advice on hiving packages in freezing weather.

Not a problem if the bees are dumped on frames of honey.

Not a problem if under fondant or a candy board,

can be a big problem if on empty drawn comb or foundation with only feed an
inside feeder with syrup. I once saw packages hives in a single with two
inside feeders with syrup on each side of three drawn combs survive and
later when warmer weather came the arrangement was changed. *If* the package
bees can reach the syrup the syrup is quickly passed through the swarm. Once
clustered and able to reach feed then they should survive as they have no
brood to protect so cluster temps need not be so high.

I always dump package bees over a couple frames of sealed honey in
Missouri. When we bring in deadouts we separate the combs into sealed
honey, pollen frames & empty drawn comb.

Then when the make up splits we simply grab what we need. All combs are
looked at we never simply toss a package on a deadout without looking at the
deadout frames. But this is a common practice with many commercial
beekeepers.

There used to be a picture in ABC XYZ of beekeeping showing package bees
being installed in freezing weather with snow on the ground. I believe you
could shake a package on a super of sealed honey in temps lower than
freezing and the bees would quickly cluster and survive but would die
quickly clustered over frames of pollen.

I would try to keep the packages as warm as possible before placing in the
hives.

bob

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