I have been wintering bees for many years in two deeps arranged in rows of
five with one inch of styrofoam on all vertical surfaces and an insulating
inner cover of two inch styrofoam on top. The brood chambers all have a one
inch hole about 3" from the bottom. Originally I left a 5/16" by 1" notch in
the rim of the inner cover for ventilation and closed both holes, leaving
only a small hole in the entrance excluder to provide air flow. This was
successful until we had serious problems with mites. I noticed that the weak
hives in the spring were all clustered in the top box far away from the
notch.
My first change was to eliminate the notch and leave the hole in the top
super open. This seemed better and I did it this way for several years.
Last year I left the hole in the top super closed and left the hole in the
bottom super open in 10 hives. We had a very bad winter / early spring /
return to winter which caused the bees to start raising brood early and then
they were unable to keep them warm and died trying. The 10 hives with the
bottom hole open and the top hole closed did significantly better than the
ones with the top hole open and the bottom hole closed.
I put 45 hives into winter this year with the bottom hole open and the top
hole closed. We will see how they do in the spring.
Best regards,
Donald Aitken
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