When I'm trying to figure something out, I often project the effect of the
factor to either extreme.

In this case, let's take a look at winter ventilation.  One extreme would
be to completely enclose a hive, other than allowing a small entrance near
the bottom for ventilation.  In many areas, this extreme appears to work
quite well for the bees--they may even further reduce the entrance with
propolis.

At the other extreme would be not to enclose the combs at all, such as with
Apis dorsata and florea, or some feral ligustica hives in subtropical
areas.  Imagine the combs hanging from a protected eve, open cavity, or top
of a cave, protected from wind and predators.  There are innumerable
opportunities for bees to establish such open-air colonies during the
summer, in areas that then experience cold winters.  Despite the abundant
availability of such protected yet well-ventilated potential nest sites,
I'm unaware of any reports of bee colonies surviving cold winters with such
full ventilation.

Ergo, it appears to me that as far as the gradient from extremely little
ventilation to unlimited ventilation, colonies in cold-winter areas in
general do better towards the less-ventilation end of the gradient.

Again, please help me to place areas in which moisture is a serious problem
on a map, so that I can test another hypothesis (I'm intentionally not
stating my hypothesis so as not to bias the data).

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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