On Fri, Jul 27, 2001 at 09:53:22AM -0500, Gary P Johns/ets/relat/Okstate wrote:
<concerning the D.E. Hive>
> All in all I would recommend this kit if you have a few hives and want to
> convert to a side mounted entrance. The only thing I did to modify the kit
> was to put an aluminum top on the roof to prevent hail damage.
>

The hive I have with a side entrance is also a D.E. conversion kit.
Unfortunately, in my climate it rarely gets hot enough for the bees
to "beard" on the outside of the hive in any case, so the D.E. hive
conversion doesn't seem to have much impact on the performance here.
As far as overwintering, the hives with a sheet of styrofoam over
the inner cover (with a channel cut to the center hole to make an
upper entrance) came through the winter just as well as the D. E.
conversion did, two years in a row.

I expect that aggressive ventilation is a lot more beneficial in
other areas, but around here it looks like heat conservation is
more of an issue.

I've also started going to screened bottom boards, which seem to
work OK, although the hives that have them seem to get off to a slower
start in the morning.

--
Tim Eisele
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