>Bee biological behavioral drivers and their use either through evolutionary adaptations (survived because they do it) or they have learnt to do it on purpose to survive.

What a great thread this has been. Keeps the mental gears spinning and sometimes grinding (especially when shifting) during these dark and dreary days. Eat your hearts out down there in the southern hemisphere. You're out working while we sit snug in front of a computer and contemplate. 

As an uneducated beekeeper I wonder what the difference is in the above quote from Etienne.  Surely individual bees or even colonys don't have the ability to learn on their own how to prepare and cope with winter. Instinctual behavior that works, works. If it does not, it does not. Our job is to figure out what we can provide in the way of accommodations in our individual locations that help the bees survive with their instinctual behaviors as they have evolved. Especially when we transport the little darlings to locations where they could not survive if depending on those instincts.

As this dumpster-fire of 2020 draws to a close, hearty seasons greetings to all ! My personal instinctual behaviors can't cope with much more. I don't have the ability to adapt to these conditions.  So change has to come. 

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA  

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