First a comment from Randy :

" To date, I have seen zero evidence in
support of the hypothesis that photoperiod is a determining factor in
colony buildup.  On the other hand, I have seen considerable evidence to
the contrary.

Many years ago I did a trial with 5 hives wrapped in the normal way, 
compared to 5 wrapped hives with completely open screened bottom boards . 
All ten hives survived our long cold winter. When I opened them in the 
spring, the normally wrapped hives had 4 frames of sealed brood each, while 
the hives with the open bottoms had two or three frames of eggs and larvae. 
They were side by side, so the photoperiod was the same.

My feeling at the time was that the delay for the open hives was due to 
their being colder. About that time a beekeeper (Pirker?) was producing 
package bees in the Peace River district from hives wintered indoors. He 
found that he could make them start raising brood by raising the relative 
humidity in the storage building. My open bottom hives would have had less 
humidity than the normally wrapped ones, so the humidity may have something 
to do with colony build up as well.


Best regards,

Donald Aitken 

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