At 01:44 PM 3/9/2004, you wrote:
>By analogy, the bees in the outer shell of a cluster - especially on the
>bottom of a cluster - surrounded by very cold can be weakened and killed.

I'd say this likely is a true statement.  In most hives outdoors, there are
always a good number of dead bees inside the hive come late winter/early
spring.  Most of them have fallen to the bottom board, but there are
usually a few on the comb, often separated from where the cluster is now.

By contrast, while my indoor observation hive did cluster, shut down brood
production, and did not leave the hive on cold days, etc. as I would expect
with a normal hive.  There were no dead bees at the bottom or on the comb.
(There  were 2 dead on the bottom after the longest cold spell).

Several years ago when I had first started beekeeping, I got my first swarm
call.  I got there at dusk on a rather cool evening.  Several missed the
box the swarm was shaken into and eventually stopped moving.  Not knowing
any better I assumed they were dead and took the majority in the hive away
(it was likely in the 50's by this time).  The next day the homeowner
called again,  they found a baseball sized cluster at the same spot.  The
chilled bees had apparently woken up as I didn't see any on the ground anymore.

Another story.. I had given a customer a jar of bees for apitherapy
(ms).  I had given him instructions how to best keep the bees (cool
location, feeding etc.).  Based on the material on the web I expected him
every 2-3 weeks because 100-200 bees in a jars aren't supposed to live
terribly long.  Over 3 months later he shows up again.  The bees had
survived in a jar for over 3 months being feed a small amount of honey each
day.  Much longer than I would have ever guessed.  Granted they were rather
lethargic near the end.

I don't know of any significant research on this specifically  (something
like the LD-50 of a lone honeybee due to temperature), nor any good
research on clustersize vs cold and wintering ability (optimal cluster size
by breed perhaps).  Obviously some breeds (NWC for example) do better than
italians with the same cluster size I would guess in part because they
raise less brood though the winter (or none at all).  Brood rearing
significantly increases the honey consumption.  Amount of pollen in the
hive has also been linked to success wintering in one study I did see.  I'd
expect NWC to have a small advantage there too since they don't consume as
much raising brood during the winter.

A lot more study could be done in these areas, but they take lots of time,
often have too many variables to effectively control, and there is rarely
any money for these things.


-Tim

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