Vince Coppola wrote:
      We have been using stryrofoam, or expanded polystyrene, for about
>8 years. We use 3/4 in., high density because it is durable, tried 1/2 in.
>low density but the bees chewed it up quickly. A 16X20 inch piece is
>placed over an inverted inner cover. The inner cover has a 2 in.piece of
>the rim removed for ventilation.
 
Hi Vince and All:
        I use a very deep top tray feeder on my hives.  I make them out of
the same lumber I use for medium supers.  They have a big space over the top
bars (3/4 inch or about 18 mm.).  This is always filled with burr comb when
I take them off in late spring, but it enables the bees to have a healthy
connection over the top bars and lets me cut a top entrance and ventilation
hole which is 1 inch wide (25mm.) by 1/2 inch (13mm.) deep and leave a bit
of wood before the groove for the plywood bottom which has to be a syrup
proof joint.  The bees go up a central column to drink syrup and this has
hardware screen over it.  When I am finished feeding syrup I fill the tray
with DRY wood shavings from a local window shop or a kiln dried hardwood
specialty mill.  Shavings from a regular lumber mill are not dry enough.
The moisture from the hive goes out the top entrance, but alot of it also
goes up the central column and into the shavings.  In spring the shavings
are literally sopping (you can pour water out of the feeders) from feeders
that were over the strongest colonies. Feeders that were over medium
strength colonies sometimes have an inch or two of dry shavings still over
the wet ones. Now I realize that the soaking wet shavings have lost most of
their insulation value, and that this is the advantage of polystyrene, but I
am firmly convinced that the shavings are keeping the hives much drier than
they would be with just the top entrance so I have refrained from putting
the shavings in a plastic bags.  (I could put polystyrene under the
shavings, but they seem to be doing fine without it).  This is the only
insulating that I do, and I don't wrap.  We have some pretty severe winter
weather here in PEI.  It is not as cold as western Canada, but it is damp,
snowy and the wind can be ferocious.
 
        By the way Vince, you were right.  I took more notice this year of
when my eyes and face started itching and I believe it was not the propolis
causing it, but rather the goldenrod pollen.
 
Regards, Stan