After Randy's feedback, I had a look at how the conditional formatting was setup on the heat maps (colour schemes).

I decided to leave the old one but also add a new version that is based on the full range of temperatures. I used -10C (14F) to 30C (86F). The temperatures do go above and below these but 95% of the values are in between these values. The original formatting took the high low of each hourly snapshot to define the colour scheme. This provides good contrast to see the minutes shifts and changes (likely movements) taking place.

I also reviewed my heat loss calculations and I did find a minor error that I fixed, I added the daily / weekly honey equivalent for the heat loss values. The previously defined relationship between the enclosure heat loss and the outside temperature still holds (no correlation Low R2). This means that the inside temperature is more closely related to outside temperature (R2 >0.9) due to how effective cluster is to prevent heat loss. 

However, in fixing the calculation, the correlation R2 between enclosure heat loss and outside temperature when broodrearing seems to start (sharp rise in internal temperature) to correlation values rise above R2>0.9 (heat loss of enclosure to T ambient). This makes complete sense as the colony must now attempt to maintain the internal nest temperature above 33C 93F. You will notice in the Mar April video that the colony raises the nest T to around 30C but quickly loses control as the outside temperature drops to -3C & -1C  two mornings in a row. Luckily for this colony, it only happens two days in a row but the daily lows remain below 10C for a few weeks longer. The correlation R2 between heat loss and T ambient goes from >0.9 to 0.8 to 0.7 as the daily lows start increasing (warming up). I attached a couple of charts and one data table illustrating ht loss energy Vs T ambient, Average T in Box and Min T in Box. The second chart shows to honey equivalent per week. The actual Honey lbs/week will be slightly lower but the numbers are still representative of the effort. This is due to the sensor locations and my simplified heat loss calc approach.

In many locations the cycle of warm days/cold mornings can go on for long periods into spring. We occasionally get freak winter storms that drop us back into freezing weather. This period is also where many colonies starve out desperately trying to maintain nest temperatures. Colonies are at their most vulnerable (lowest population, lowest stores level). 

Up here we keep our insulation on well into May, to reduce the impact of these stressful events. 

Video 1: Dec 2016 Cluster
https://youtu.be/8hwJQzJL4g4

Video 2: Mar + April 2017 Cluster + transition to broodrearing
https://youtu.be/PvMfS99I7Fg

Again I want to thank Theo H at Broodminder for providing me with this data, and allowing me to dig into it.

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