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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Fri, 22 Dec 2023 17:47:27 +0000
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     In my opinion, those conditions are easily met with no added insulation and no added ventilation.   I will add limitations to this sentence.1.  It will work fine in NE Ohio at an elevation of 1250 feet.2.  It will work fine if the bees are in a double deep brood chambers or at least a double deep five frame box.3.  It will work fine if the top box in the above stacks is wall to wall capped stores.4.  It will work fine if you stack all kinds of empty boxes on top of the above.
5.  It will work fine if the beekeeper has done a really good job of killing mites.  A really good job is a zero to five 48 hour mite drop after treatment with two grams of oxalic vapor per brood chamber.

    It may fail miserably for you.  I have no way of knowing or even guessing.  For me insulation or wrapping is a total waste of time.   I make just as good a honey crop as those around me who go to great lengths protecting their hives.  I had two hives last year (out of five total hives) that each gave over a 200 pound harvest in spite of golden rod being a total bust.  There was only five or ten pounds of GR on my best hives last fall. Too little to taste in the fall crop I harvested that mainly came in during late July and early August way before GR.  It was too cold in September.  I would guess the average hive in this area produces about 75 pounds in a summer with an average GR flow.  As I do not feed production hives they need to make enough to raise brood thru the year, make enough winter stores to have that box packed and then I get what is left over.

    But, all beekeeping is local.  Only 25 miles SE of me they had a bang up wonderful GR flow last fall.  What caused the difference?  About 400 feet in elevation, 25 more miles from lake Erie and 5 deg warmer most days.  Down in that swamp they may need to winter different than I do as they are going to get condensation in winter long before I get it.

I notice in this whole discussion no one  talks about the value of honey as an insulator.  I find it totally remarkable that all these people are totally ignoring what thermodynamics teaches about multiple walls.  All those walls of honey comb add significant insulation.  More than you get from the 3/4 inch thick wood box that contains the whole mess.  Yet in this whole discussion all we talked about was the wooden box!  We had a discussion here a couple of years ago when I pointed out it does not make the slightest difference in heat loss if you put a 1/16 inch thick aluminum sheet in your outside facing widows versus putting glass in those same windows versus putting  polycarbonate plastic in them.  Never mind that polycarbonate has a lower thermal conductivity than aluminum by  factor of 1000.  The heat loss will be so close to equal you will have very hard time seeing the difference as it is less than 1%.  I explained why this is true back then so if you do not recall the reason do a search and find the thread.

    Dick

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