Hi Ian & All,

> -25 as day time highs is cold, and that leading into -30 -35 night time
> lows is very hard on the bees.  -25 does not allow the bees a break during
> a cold snap and when the cold snap is 4 weeks long, things happen
>

That is not extremely cold either or that long and bees can survive those
temperatures inside a hive with top insulation only along with adequate quality
feed. the only bees that will not survive are those that did not have enough
feed and did not prepare properly themselves for the winter ahead. Those that
prepared properly and with the intellect and good habits to survive will survive
and in my opinion are the only ones worthy of perpetuating anyways. Any crutch
will weaken genetically any stock to the point of needing to continue the
crutch.

 . ..   Keith Malone, Chugiak, Alaska USA, http://www.cer.org/,
c(((([ , Apiarian, http://takeoff.to/alaskahoney/,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Norlandbeekeepers/ ,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ApiarianBreedersGuild/

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