>Are there any recommendations to cover an observation hive (three frames high)
>when it is not being observed?
>
>This hive is inside and lit from above with fluorescent lights.
 
We have just brought a hive of this pattern through its first winter.  We
started it in mid summer with 1 frame of brood and bees with queen of no
particular value, just for interest's sake and have learned a lot watching
brood pattern and waggle dance and the hatching process.  During autumn the
population shrank to 1 frame of bees and we did not really expect it to
survive but at the end of winter with the bees on one side covering an area
about the size of the palm of the hand, the queen started laying.  We then
added a sticky frame and a pollen frame and the activity level really picked
up, cleaning out the frames and moving the honey to cells surrounding the
brood.  The first laid eggs have now hatched and the brood covers about
one-quarter of the frame.  I think they will make it.
 
The hive is 3 frames high with a clear plastic tube from the top through the
side of the wall about 8 feet high so you can walk under the flight path.
The hive normally faces onto one wall although we can move it to inspect the
other side.  The side facing the room was not covered.  The bees managed to
clean out all dead bee bodies and debris from the bottom of the hive during
autumn but there was an accumulation of dead bodies in late winter that we
cleaned out.  A bee would struggle with a dead body all the way up the
frames, out the tube and 3 feet to the outside entrance - quite remarkable.
 
We suspended a string through the plastic tube to give the bees a firmer
footing because they seemed to be slipping backwards but after a day the
tube gave them no trouble.
Have learned a great deal about identifying the queen and watching patterns
of bee movement.
 
Betty McAdam
HOG BAY APIARY
Penneshaw, Kangaroo Island
j.h. & e. mcadam<[log in to unmask]
http://kigateway.eastend.com.au/hogbay/hogbay1.htm