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Mon, 11 Dec 2017 15:29:59 -0700 |
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I did some small experimentation with regard to wintering about 1990 when
the Canadian government had closed the border to packages from the countries
that had mites. I settled on a configuration with 5 hives in a row with 1''
styrofoam on all vertical sides and an inner cover of 1" styroafoam encased
in plywood. This worked very well at that time and has only started to show
weakness with the presence of varroa mites, the ubiquitous use of round up
to eliminate all useful weeds and a failure of hives with old queens to
replace them.
While I was doing this, I tried some groups of five with totally open
screened bottom boards and some without the styrofoam insulation at the
front. Most of these survived the winter as well as the more heavily
insulated ones. However, in March, the heavily insulated ones had several
frames of sealed brood, but the less insulated ones had only frames of eggs
and larvae. This would indicate that the lower temperature retarded the
onset of brood rearing by about a week. It is also possible that the less
effective seal prevented the build up of humidity that Pirker (?) had
employed to induce brood rearing in hives kept inside temperature controlled
buildings.
Best Regards
Donald Aitken, Edmonton Alberta 53° 41' 51" N 113° 37' 32" W
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