> One thing I forgot to mention, is that Aaron uses stryo hives and his
> are painted -- yellow -- as I recall.
>
> Seems to me he says his best wintering was in them, and his
> losses were
> in the (unwrapped) wooden hives.  Can't recall if he had top
> ventilation
> or not.
>
> Aaron?

Yes, I was quick to test the styro hives when they were first marketed in
the US, and I'm glad I did!  I had very good wintering results (although the
sample size was limited (7)).  Of the 7 I lost one.  All were populated late
in the season (early August); only 3 built into doubles; 4 were
over-wintered as singles; the one I lost was a single.  Of the 6 survivors,
4 were splitable this spring (2 of the doubles and 2 of the singles).  One
of the doubles was split twice!

First, I painted the hives a straw yellow from the mis-matched color bargain
bin paint counter.  I had no color-design/testing hypothesis/parameter
equalization in mind when I had paint brush in hand.

Second, I did provide "limited" upper ventilation.  The inner cover was
notched for winter access/egress, but I kept the notch on the up side of the
inner cover (the bees had to use the center hole of the inner cover to walk
to the notch to fly).  I was advised by a prominent, now retired beekeeper
to leave the notch down, but I left it up, as is my winter habit on all my
hives.

My original intent to test the styro hives was to evaluate 10.  I purchased
20 deep boxes, 10 bottom boards, 10 inner and 10 outer covers.  Some not
retired beekeepers have advised to skip the styro covers based on their
cost, but I wanted to evaluate the whole system.  Unfortunately, due to my
involvement with EAS 2002, I didn't get around to installing bees in the
boxes until after the conference, so my guess is the bees didn't see the
boxes much before August 15th.  I don't have my records handy as I write
this, but my recollection is that I moved developing splits into the styro
hives.  The splits were set up sometime in July, so they would have been
5-frame nucs with a New World Carniolan queen from a West Coast breeder.  I
had hoped with a good fall flow the colonies would have built into both deep
boxes, but that didn't pan out for 4 of the 7.  The bottom box contained
drawn comb; the top box was foundation.  Apparently it was asking too much
of the colony to draw and fill the second box (although 3 of 7 did).  I did
not feed the bees to entice them to draw the foundation.  The ones that did
not fill the second deep had the second deep removed VERY late in the season
(after Thanksgiving, but before December) and at least one, perhaps 2 of the
3 doubles had the boxes reversed in the same timeframe.  The removed boxes
were partially drawn but not filled.

Conclusions?  Well, having made no effort to minimize variables or set up
controls I can only make anecdotal claims.  It was far from a controlled
scientific experiment.  My successes in styrofoam about equaled my failures
in wood; I lost 1 in 7 in styrofoam, I lost 7 in 8 in wood.  I had
horrendous losses this past winter, and have been going all out to refill my
deadouts.  I cannot attribute the successes totally to the styrofoam system.
A blaring shortfall in the evaluation/comparison is that the styro hives ALL
were splits with new queens, as opposed to the variables associated with the
colonies in wood (some of the in-wood colonies had new queens, some had
second year queens, all were honey production hives, many were nucleus
donors, some were spits that spring, some were over wintered from 2001).  My
record keeping fell off right around EAS 2002, and I have been too busy this
spring to attempt any sort of SWAG regarding the in-wood survivors, as their
variables are all over the board.  The styro-hives are easier to evaluate.

So, CONCLUSIONS?  Everything is anecdotal.  Losses of 1 in 7 vs. 7 in 8 is
to me a no brainer and I should repeat whatever it was I did with the 1 in 7
group.  Thankfully, Ann Harmon is already coordinating the EAS 2003 Short
Course!  (Incidentally, the deadline for early registration for EAS 2003 at
Bowdoin, Maine is June 14th; see http://easternapiculture.org/programs/2003/
.)  I am STRONGLY suspect that the styro hives had a lot to do with the
winter survival.  So much so that I bought another 10 sets of
bottoms/inner/outer covers with the intent to populate a full 20 single
deeps with splits in mid/late July to over winter.  I do not intend to set
up comparable splits in wood, unless someone is willing to bankroll the
experiment (bees, equipment and my time).  I cannot argue that the
conclusions have been reached without scientific verification.  So be it.  I
do not see a need to wrap the styro hives; they're quite tight, well
insulated and amply ventilated.  But wrapping is a red herring in my
beekeeping world; I do not make the time to wrap my hives.  That's a
management decision I make to fit MY schedule and it works most years.
Perhaps my losses would not have been so bad had I wrapped my wooden hives
last fall.  Many will say yes, but that's in the realm of
woulda/coulda/shoulda, and in MY schedule, wrapping wonta/canta/ainta gonna
happen.  So I'll jump to the conclusion that styro hives are the answer to
wintering in the inhospitable northeast and quickly acquiesce to those who
counter based on the lack of scientifically controlled experiments to back
up my conclusion.

I had good results as stated above.  So good that I'm going to expand and
see if I can repeat on what I did that worked well last year.  I don't have
the time/resources/inclinations to collect the emperical data to publish
valid scientific conclusions, but if I can repeat and triple my styro
successes, I can live with that.

Aaron Morris - I think, therefore I bee!

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