re: hives buried in snow and melting a cavity around the hive.  Jim asks "Doesn't the observation above imply that there was very limited ventilation for these buried hives?..."

Limited ventilation is a relative term and is probably irrelevant in this case.

1)  There is actually quite a bit of respiration through snow.  Oxygen and carbon dioxide migrate through relatively easily.  (For example, winter survival training on building a snow cave says you seal the entrance once you're inside.  You are in no danger of asphyxiation while inside and the available oxygen flow can even support a small candle in most conditions.)

2)  As this list has repeatedly discussed, the real threat in a beehive is the elimination of excess humidity, not oxygen transport.  The "traditional" response is to vent the humid air to the outside of the environment.  In the impromptu snow cave the excess humidity will condense against the snow cavity walls, leaving drier air to recirculate into the beehive.  If memory serves, it only takes about an inch of airspace for convection currents to set themselves up.

This is the same mechanism that some have proposed as the reason that the polystyrene hive bodies are more effective at winter survival even though the R-value of the walls are relatively low.  The thinner areas of the walls provide specific sites for condensation to occur where it can safely run off and not drip onto the middle of the cluster.



Mike Rossander

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