My winter so far has been colder than most of your winters down south will be for your entire winter. Why test something if the conclusion is they will fail (Owens already did cold stress tests on the bees)? Using lagging measures is costly and expensive (especially at $350/nuc). Would I trial fly a plane without 1st doing some modelling and wind tunnel tests or using similar planes as a start point or checking to see if others had done something similar? I actually run full tests on all my hives every year to get enough "n" to measure if it had a positive impact from one or 2 variable changes. 4 years ago, I lost all my colonies to Nosema C. Potential reasons was likely a combination of Honeydew honey (tested and confirmed), the use of a top entrance with an open screened bottom board and a late fall prep due travel reasons. Hives were heavy but with the wrong type of stores, and the 2:1 I put in likely never got properly cured thus causing dysentery that likely spread Nosema C through out the hive. 

Again the Yukon is forage limited to 2 to 4 hives per location to ensure decent honey yields? I do my research for fun but I don't have unlimited funds or the support of a University/ special funding. I do use all my bee education income and re-invest it into more research.

As someone who deals in safety, business management and equipment reliability. You learn to test hypothesis without risking harm to people or destroying a $25M rope shovel or destroying a $500M processing plant.

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