I have been wintering bees for many years in two deeps arranged in rows of 
five with one inch of styrofoam on all vertical surfaces and an insulating 
inner cover of two inch styrofoam on top. The brood chambers all have a one 
inch hole about 3" from the bottom. Originally I left a 5/16" by 1" notch in 
the rim of the inner cover for ventilation and closed both holes, leaving 
only a small hole in the entrance excluder to provide air flow. This was 
successful until we had serious problems with mites. I noticed that the weak 
hives in the spring were all clustered in the top box far away from the 
notch.

My first change was to eliminate the notch and leave the hole in the top 
super open. This seemed better and I did it this way for several years.

Last year I left the hole in the top super closed and left the hole in the 
bottom super open in 10 hives. We had a very bad winter / early spring / 
return to winter which caused the bees to start raising brood early and then 
they were unable to keep them warm and died trying. The 10 hives with the 
bottom hole open and the top hole closed did significantly better than the 
ones with the top hole open and the bottom hole closed.

I put 45 hives into winter this year with the bottom hole open and the top 
hole closed. We will see how they do in the spring.



Best regards,

Donald Aitken

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