Derek's provocative claim that we are being "cruel" to our bees certainly
opened a hornet's nest!  The facts are that we don't force any colony to
remain in our hives, and in the wild, most colonies don't make it through
their first winter.

>  They cite multiple studies and a lot of data but each study and data set
is unique to the conditions specific to the case.

Tell me about it!  Since this thread started, I've been reading published
study after study, going back many years.
I'm now now trying to make sense of all the data, and figure out how and
why they obtained different results and came to contrary interpretations of
their data, especially when it involves interpretation of bee innate
behaviors, and their effects upon the individual bee, and the resulting
thermodynamics, health, and survival of the colony as a whole.

Most every study has shortcomings -- many recognized by the researchers
themselves.  And as far as I can tell, no one has investigated how the bees
in the mantle feed themselves or get fed!
I've used published data to perform some "interesting" crude calculations
on colony thermography, and am questioning some interpretations of how
clusters regulate their temperature.

>We have a sizeable installed base and any improvement must also be cost
effective.
This is the main point for any commercial beekeeper.  Ten dollars per hive
works out to $10,000 for every thousand hives in an operation.  And for us
migratory beekeepers, adding an inch here or there can have have a huge
effect on how many hives we can load on a truck.

There is certainly no "one size fits all" solution.  There are huge
differences in winter low temperatures and duration between the Yukon and
Florida, between Italians or Carniolans,between large clusters or small
clusters, between high humidity or low, and between beekeeper goals (early
buildup vs. avoidance of swarming).

Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
530 277 4450
ScientificBeekeeping.com

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