In the north winter has been upon us and the bees for a long while. We've had a really good spread of cold temperatures which has made my data collecting interesting. (Note: All temperatures are in Celsius)
As mentioned before I am comparing the impact of a slatted rack on a wintering hive. My hypothesis is that it will run warmer and will increase honey consumption. Note: I am talking 40lbs vs 30lbs so still within the survivability specs for a wintering single brood colony.
So far excluding the late brood rearing that seemed to occur in the slatted colony in late October/early November, it has been running slightly warmer and in a much more open cluster.
Evening internal temperature profiles are consistently higher than daytime likely due to increased metabolism as the temperature drops in both setups.
Estimated cluster volume based on temperature profile is smaller in the non-slatted rack colony in both the weekly trend and when plotted against outside temperature. It is however at very similar levels now. The early difference is likely due to the late brood rearing and levelling off of temperatures to the 18-21C Tmax range. My guess here is during extreme drops the slatted rack does provide more buffering on the lower surface area of the cluster (lowers cold stress). The cluster will be tighter in the non-slatted rack colony see curbed slope during our recent cold snap (-38C).
Enclosure heat loss trends follow a very linear relationship (expected). There is a slight difference in slope between both colonies.
My post wouldn't be complete without some charts :)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LsoEp2AGQPNay6scpuftV2uMm8Hf8m30/view?usp=sharinghttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1AJ_267mTbVM5J97fUv8kh52xxovdb5Xo/view?usp=sharing
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