>> I never MENTIONED... > sometimes, i think you are oversimplifying. > when people start saying that cold does not > kill bees, that is when I say, "Whoa".... A simple question on the face of it: Ventilate? Wrap? Insulate? But like any of the hundreds of thousands of possible points of discussion about beekeeping, there are different views, and (most of the) different views have (at least some) hard facts behind them. But can we EVER answer ANY question with a simple "yes" or "no", or are we all too "informed" to be able to do that? But, what can we say (and agree upon) about "cold"? Ventilation? Well, the best I could do would be to say that within the natural range of honeybees, where bees might overwinter without human intervention, and it would be possible for a swarm to survive on its own for more than a year, George Imire's position is strictly correct. Ooops, sorry... "STRICTLY CORRECT". :) But sure, there are exceptions. Many of these exceptions exist because some people choose to keep bees in locations where they simply would not survive even a year without a beekeeper and a certain amount of technology. For example, the concept of "overwintering" has only existed on a large-scale basis in the Canadian plains since 1987 or so, and convincing the larger Canadian beekeepers in places like Alberta and Manitoba to attempt to do so required extensive research, Canadian government subsidies for beekeepers (both a $10 per colony payment, and subsidized "winter feed" prices). I think it would be an entertaining exercise for the collective consensus of this group (as gleaned from the archives) to be evaluated and counted (based on the merits of the points offered in support of each position) as "votes" on specific issues, and compared to the questions and answers from (for example) the EAS and the NC "master beekeeper" tests, or any such test offered by any group anywhere. Assuming that it were even possible to "count the votes", how would "we" do? I think that we would end up looking like the 10-year old who, being taught Newtonian physics, insisted that the teacher was wrong because she was ignoring the effect of relativity, which he had read about in an X-Men comic book. (A true story. I know the teacher.) But does this sort of tendency for exceptions to be given "equal time" or even "more airtime" than general rules of thumb make it impossible to conduct any adult conversation about anything of importance to beekeeping in this forum? Not among ourselves, certainly, but we 700-some people are a negligible fraction of the total beekeeper population. The bulk of them would dismiss many of our longer discussion threads as a very long and tedious game of "Trivial Pursuit", played with expensive computer equipment. Since it is nearly impossible to speak about bees without speaking about climate and weather, is beekeeping a mostly weather-driven activity? I'm surprised how many of my spring beekeeping tasks can be scheduled with nothing more than a simple running total of "Growing Degrees Days to date", and how my fall activities are completely dominated by the ticking of the countdown to the approaching "first frost". For example, I started making pollen patties a few weeks ago, and sure enough, we had our highly-predictable "warm spell" with temps in the 50s (F) this week, so I tossed them in yesterday and this morning. As expected, most hives had enough brood area to say that they are "rebooting for spring". In a week or so, we should see the first dandelion and maple pollen coming in on the legs of foragers. And I had a dead-out. Lot's o bees, lots "head in a cell". They clearly starved. My fault, no excuses. They clearly somehow ate through their stores more quickly than the 178 other hives. I should be happy about a one-half of one percent "winter loss rate", but I still feel guilty and sick to my stomach about losing even a single colony, when I should be dancing with joy. jim (A member of the "Prairie Home Battalion") :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::