On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Bill Truesdell wrote:  > I did some research on this
and the finding were that wrapping, when the > temp is below 28F on
average, is worse for the bees than leaving them > unwrapped. Above that
temp and wrapping is probably better.

Hi Bill:

This seems totally different from our experience in Alberta. Bees that are
not wrapped only survive very mild winters and do not have enough bees in
the spring to do very well. Wrapped ones are boiling over with bees in the
spring and can easily be split with both splits producing a honey crop. It
seems that leaving them wrapped until mid May produces best results,
although there is sometimes a problem with early swarming. You must have
ventilation to get rid of the moisture produced by respiration. Top
entrances work well and open screened bottom boards seem to as well.

It is crucial that there be enough bees to start with in the fall and they
must have sufficient stores, preferably from feed made with sucrose. This
is definitely better than stores consisting of all honey. For early build
up in the spring it is necessary that they have lots of pollen.

It is possible that there are actually 3 temperature regimes to consider.
Maybe wrapping bees in weather above 28F enables them to continue in a
normal fashion, wrapping in temperatures 28F to 10F(?) encourages them to
forage or raise brood that they cannot feed or keep warm enough, and
wrapping below 10F is required to ensure survival.


                                                Best regards

                                                Donald Aitken