>would like some others to tell me if they see more or less the same thing
(colony-to-colony variation).

Absolutely! I've attached a histogram of colony weight gain for 35 of my
nucs, all from the same queen mother, and mated and kept in the same yard.
Not unexpectedly for a biological group, their performance follows a bell
curve (following the Pareto principle, I junk the poor performers).

So if a research project had tested 35 different treatments, using only a
single one of the colonies from that yard (a common garden experiment) for
each replicate, what could they have possibly learned?

As one who is asked to review papers and proposals, I'm in complete
agreement that today's peer review if often ridiculously poor.  Publishers
(and researchers) today apparently often feel that provocative titles and
headlines are more important than the scientific merit of the paper.

Second post:  >with the elements relatively equal is there a benefit to the
colony in insulated versus uninsulated cavities?
Ah, and this is what I'm in the middle of reviewing and mathematically
testing (before moving on to lab and field testing).
Not only insulated, since no one keeps colonies in the open -- as far as I
know, everyone uses a minimum of 3/4" of pine insulation -- but rather the
optimal amount of insulation (since too much appears to have a negative
effect).
Plus the question of type of ventilation (bottom, mid, top, or bottom and
top).
But the main factor (aside from varroa) may well be the number of bees in
the cluster, especially relative to cavity size (and external surface
area).  *That* may be the most difficult thing for the beekeeper to control
(although many of us almond pollinators make the effort to do so (take your
winter losses in the fall).

Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
530 277 4450
ScientificBeekeeping.com

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