Lloyd mentioned heat transfer from a colony underneath another colony.

This evening, 9.30pm approx. I walked by some of the colonies that had
not taken up their feed - waiting with the rest to be moved into the
wintering house once the weather "cools".

These colonies are the ten that I mentioned in an earlier mail.

This morning, loss for loss sake - I placed a 3 gallon feeder back on
these colonies and put on 2 gallons of HFCS.

My reasoning was - the weather is mild, see what happens.

This evening the hives were roaring, bees ventilating at the reduced
entrances.
Putting my finger into the syrup - it was relatively warm (compared to
the exterior temp. of 11 degrees Celsius.

When the temp. of the syrup was taken it read:
18, 18.6, 21, 19.2 degrees.

Those still not taking had a feeder containing syrup at around 12 degrees.

Heat transfer (loss) does definitely take place!

Understood that the bees in the feeding colonies had increased their
metabolic rate to deal with the sugar syrup.

Shall be interested to see what happens to these colonies over the
winter - and more so in the spring if they make it.

Regards,
Peter

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