many mails about heating the hives.

cam told

> heat rises, I think some warmth moves through the cluster from the
> tape. Last winter the nucs were covered in snow for about 6 weeks. I
> had 5% loss. Best winter yet for me

We have quiet a lot experience of heating and wintering here in Finland. 
Bees already stopped flying for this year 2 weeks ago and have a 
clenansing flight  sometime in April.

If your hives don't normally get covered the good results could also be 
from the snow covering. It insulates the hives for cold spellls very 
effectively. I want them to be covered and it happens here often. Some 
beekeepers cover the hives by shoveling the snow on them. If you do it 
has to be light snow, and the work done on -5C or colder so the snow 
don't pack too much. But I don't recommend artificial snow cover here, 
and only few do it.

Heating outside hives has been tried a lot, but without much success. It 
just isn't worth the trouble in mid winter. Its impossibe to save 15 kg 
of food inwintering by heating. I save maybe 3 kg of food by wintering 
in cellar, but the cost for carrying hives inside/outside is more. Stll 
I take 100 - 200 hives in cellar but those are the ones weaker than 
normal, winter clustes on 4 frames or less. They benefit a lot of cellar 
temperature 0- +8 C (I don't control the temperature during winter)  
Optimum for minimum food use is about + 4 - 5C for small colonies and 
about + 2 C normal size colonies.

The only real beneft from elecric heating is in early sping when brood 
production starts. With extra heating the bees can maintain bigger brood 
area. But practical experience of my friend who do it is, that you 
should not start too early, only after snow is gone and bees can get 
access for water almost daily. If you start earlier the hives satrt 
producing bees earlier but fall back later. And you should feed pollen 
supplement if there is no pollen coming in.

Ari Seppälä
beekeeping advicer
Finland



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