And, seeing as we are writing this same book all over again, I guess someone 
needs ot point out that each beekeeper has different goals and different 
assets.  One size does not fit all, and one method does not even necessarily 
suit two neighbours.

Some just want survival and are most happy if the bees just scrape through 
and don't bother them by wanting to swarm and /or making so much honey they 
have to extract more than once a year, if that often.

Others want to maximize return on their investment and manage to that end.

Some want to split early.  Others don't.

Some run frugal black bees with winter clusters so small it seems that they 
will surely perish by spring (but they don't), and which eat almost nothing 
over winter.  Others run prolific and voracious Italians which run through 
two boxes of feed by March, and look ready to swarm anytime.

The talk of hive colour and wrapping -- and packing -- reminds me that I run 
both wood and styrofoam hives. One might think that there would not be much 
difference between wooden hives wrapped with insulation and the colonies in 
styrofoam boxes.  Au contraire.  They are very different in their 
development.  The former build faster in spring, but the latter, after 
looking to be slow, catch up and overtake them within a month or so.  The 
end result may be the same and it may not. Such things are hard to prove.

We get lots of perspective here from everyone -- from renegades who cannot 
and will not do whatever is agreed to be standard, to hobbyists with one 
hive, to scientists, to commercial beekeepers.  Moreover, our contributors 
are scattered over quite a bit of geography.

Caveat emptor. 

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