The Abuo-Shaara study is easy to examine and analyze, as it presents purely numerical results, and makes claims based upon mere numeric differences about very small observation-hive sized populations of bees that are so finely attuned and responsive to "the conditions", they often seem to have a very good crystal ball.
It seems that the data was misinterpreted to promote an agenda. It should be obvious that a smaller population of bees, making fewer foraging trips, yet making the same amount of honey "per bee" is doing far better than the hive that has to struggle and endure the overhead of raising more bees to get the same "yield per bee". In beekeeping it is very well-known that a larger hive enjoys economies of scale, and should be able to increase its "yield per bee" well over the smaller population's "yield per bee" in a non-linear manner.
So, a study that has one hive that produces more bees, and more forager sorties, but NOT more honey should rate that hive as "low yield", and admit that the hive design of the "insulated cover box" (ICB) is hampering, not helping the bees.
I will apply this basic premise to the quotes below, as this is a good object lesson in how one must look at the raw data, and evaluate that data using FAMILIAR metrics, or better yet, standard criteria.
> ...While it seems counterintuitive, it appears that the colonies in this hot climate performed better with insulated cover boxes when compared to other hive configurations on almost every metric:
But the definition of "better" was very different from how a beekeeper would evaluate a hive. The merely numerical differences in specific metrics indicated that the ICB hives burdened the bees placed in them in ways that the thermoregulated and back-drawer hives did not.
> 'The heat stress on the honey bees was higher in the normal beehives than in the modified beehives. One might expect the honey bee workers in normal beehives to waste more energy performing effective thermoregulation than those in the modified beehives.'
No argument there, my only point here was that throwing insulation ALONE at the problem was not as good as primitive "HVAC", insulation plus a heat source or heat sink (the "thermoregulation" or water mass/"back drawer" ).
> '... the Carniolan honey bee colonies with insulated cover boxes performed better than those with the thermoregulatory or insulated beehives with back drawers.
This specific statement above is plainly incorrect - as I pointed out, the insulated hive raised more brood, but was no more productive than the smaller populations in the thermo and back-drawer hives on a "per bee" basis.
> The enhanced performance can be explained by the role of the insulated boxes in reducing the internal temperature and preserving the micro-climate of the colonies around a steady state. In other words, the presence of the insulated cover boxes reduced the internal temperature and protected the colonies from fluctuations resulting from ambient climatic conditions.'
Yes, but the thermo and back-drawer hives did a tangibly better job of this same task.
> Mean Foraging...
This is a measure of how many sorties are made by the bees. One would compare this against the amounts of honey and brood. The insulated hive REQUIRED more foraging, and all that extra foraging resulted in no gain in stores ("honey crop") on a per-bee basis. So one could say that raising all that extra brood was costly in terms of forager sorties, or one could go further, and say that water foragers had to work harder in the insulated hive with no thermoregulation in the form of a water mass or an active thermo system.
> 'For the Carniolan honey bees, the highest mean foraging was 43.87 bees for the colonies with insulated cover boxes, and the lowest was 23.05 bees for the insulated beehives with a back drawer.'
So, the back drawer hive was the most efficient, as the bees foraged less, yet produced an equal amount of honey on a per-bee basis. This is a VERY powerful statement, as Carnis are all about efficiency.
> Emergence Rate - 'For the Carniolan honey bees, the lowest mean was 96.13% for the thermoregulatory beehives, and the highest mean was 99.14 % for the insulated cover boxes.'
Emergence rates and queen laying rates are not something we can attribute to the features of a box unless we do some queen swapping, and watch the performance of the box itself with exchanged queens.
> 'The Carniolan honey bee colonies with insulated cover boxes had the highest means for the sealed brood, and honey areas as well as bee numbers. These high means could be explained by the role of the insulated cover boxes in reducing the environmental stress on the honey bee colonies and preserving the steady conditions within the colonies. The high bee numbers mean could be explained by the relatively high mean sealed brood area because the sealed brood represents the next population of workers. In contrast, the relatively high mean stored honey area may be due to the high population of bees that form the foraging force.'
Or, one could say that the data shows that the insulation additionally stressed the bees, forcing them to forage more, cool the hive more, and store less. The additional workload prompted more brood rearing, as the colony kept "ramping up population" to meet the demands. The thermo and back-drawer hives were less challenged by their climate-controlled hives, and did not have to work as hard, or suffer the overhead of the insulated cover box hive.
As a comparison, Enrico Femi worked out the energy of the "Trinity" atomic bomb blast by tossing small scraps of paper into the air when the blast detonated, where the research team was standing, 10 miles from the blast. The shock wave pushed the scraps of paper about 2.5 meters, from which he correctly worked out (from distance, displacement of the confetti, and change in air pressure require to move the paper that distance) that the explosion was in the 10 to 20 kiloton range, and NOT over 25 kiloton, which was important, as they did not want the radioactivity to spread far from the site. Metrics need to be something one can see easily, and need to be something that relates to reality.
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