Hello Everyone,

Here's a mild story of success with 'heated hives':

Last summer I went to the trouble of removing feral bees all the way
through September starting them on pieces of their own brood & comb.  Of

course, late in the season, their chances for survival aren't much
better than Clinton to keep office.

On the theory that wide swings in weather are a primary cause for bees
to engorge on honey & energy I constructed a frame for nucs to sit part
way out an upstairs window.
>From this, I had four nucs staggered one on-top the other with
removable
'feeder' holes screened-in atop at the rear which I fed sugar-syrup from

late-November on.  The feeding started with pouring honey by the
spoonful and moved to 1 gal top-feeders.
Pictures of these nucs may be seen at Barry Birkey's site:

http://www.birkey.com/BLB/Beekeeping/nucs.html

I only found time to fill three of the four nucs but all three started
with less than 2 filled frames and survived with 3 - 5 frames at the end

of March.

This room sits away from the heated majority of  the house and is unused

except for storage, leaving both the door and the heat risers closed.
The general room temperature is probably 30-50 degrees F throughout the
winter.  With the entrance to the Nucs closed down to 1/2 inch on the
entrance and duct-taped to seal outside winds, I'm estimating the bees
were able to survive by reducing the temperature to more of a constant
cluster-forming climate.

Happy Keeping,

Matthew Westall in Castle Rock, CO