>The great variety of management techniques that are applied to our bees are
>an indication of how adaptable bees are. Many survive inspite of us. :>)


No, many survive becasue of us.  You said it yourself,"Very few ferals can
survive here so I don't have much experience with them".  And yet the bees
you are looking after are flurishing.  Perhaps they are flurishing becasue
of our intervention.  And without our intervention there would be no bees
in many areas of the country, most of Canada, and parts of the US.  We
provide the environment and needed resources, they do the work.  Yes they
are highly adaptable creatures, but we provide them the environment to
adapt to.


>Upper ventilation is touted as a cure for excessive winter moisture. I
>wonder how many hives have problems with this?


You have to realize that not all climates are as dry as yours is throughout
the year.  Do you shovel out your hives everytime you get a dump of snow?
You probably dont get alot of snow anyway, but do you go and make sure all
enterences are free throughout the winter?   Top enterences open themselves
from frost ice and snow, and never fill up with dead bees.  Ipack them for
winter, and the next time I see them is in the spring.  As I said, top
enterences are the needed insurance to winter successfully up here in
Manitoba.  The little bit of heat loss is by far offset by the advantages
of its use

Ian

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