Hi all 

I have been telling folks for years: the bees don't heat the hive, they heat the cluster. Insulation does very little in such a case. Like insulating your house but leaving the heater off and a window open. What would you do then? Bundle up, of course. And that's what the bees do, only they use live bees as a winter coat. If heat was escaping past this outer layer of bees, they wouldn't be doing a very good job of efficiently keeping the core warm. 

Think of camping out in a tent in winter. The inside is going to be slightly warmer than the outside, but you don't really care about that. You care about staying warm inside your sleeping bag. Winter hive temperatures have been thoroughly documented. 

> In 1940 claims for the advantages of electric hive heaters were being made without data. Therefore, studies were conducted at Madison, Wis., for 5 years to determine the effects of hive heaters on bees. Three commercial hive heaters were tested against unprotected hives and against protected hives without heat and against hives heated by heating tape.

> All hives consisted of three modified Dadant hive bodies. All packed and heated hives were insulated on all sides with 2 inches of insulation. Hives were also placed in heated boxes to determine the effects of storing hives at various room temperatures. The use of commercial hive heaters was discontinued after 2 years because they were inefficient or had adverse effects on the cluster. 

> Five years of tests show that colonies of bees in good condition will winter at Madison, Wis., without packing or heating. 


Electric heating of honey bee hives
Charles D. Owens, Clayton Leon Farrar - 1967
Washington, D.C. 

available free from Google Books
             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm