>> I never MENTIONED...

> sometimes, i think you are oversimplifying.

> when people start saying that cold does not
> kill bees, that is when I say, "Whoa"....


A simple question on the face of it:

   Ventilate? Wrap? Insulate?

But like any of the hundreds of thousands of possible points
of discussion about beekeeping, there are different views, and
(most of the) different views have (at least some) hard facts
behind them.

But can we EVER answer ANY question with a simple "yes" or "no",
or are we all too "informed" to be able to do that?

But, what can we say (and agree upon) about "cold"?  Ventilation?

Well, the best I could do would be to say that within the natural
range of honeybees, where bees might overwinter without human
intervention, and it would be possible for a swarm to survive on
its own for more than a year, George Imire's position is strictly
correct.  Ooops, sorry... "STRICTLY CORRECT".  :)

But sure, there are exceptions.  Many of these exceptions exist
because some people choose to keep bees in locations where they
simply would not survive even a year without a beekeeper and a
certain amount of technology.  For example, the concept of
"overwintering" has only existed on a large-scale basis in the
Canadian plains since 1987 or so, and convincing the larger
Canadian beekeepers in places like Alberta and Manitoba to attempt
to do so required extensive research, Canadian government subsidies
for beekeepers (both a $10 per colony payment, and subsidized
"winter feed" prices).

I think it would be an entertaining exercise for the collective
consensus of this group (as gleaned from the archives) to be
evaluated and counted (based on the merits of the points offered
in support of each position) as "votes" on specific issues, and
compared to the questions and answers from (for example) the EAS
and the NC "master beekeeper" tests, or any such test offered by
any group anywhere.

Assuming that it were even possible to "count the votes", how
would "we" do?  I think that we would end up looking like the
10-year old who, being taught Newtonian physics, insisted that
the teacher was wrong because she was ignoring the effect of
relativity, which he had read about in an X-Men comic book.
(A true story.  I know the teacher.)

But does this sort of tendency for exceptions to be given
"equal time" or even "more airtime" than general rules of
thumb make it impossible to conduct any adult conversation
about anything of importance to beekeeping in this forum?

Not among ourselves, certainly, but we 700-some people are a
negligible fraction of the total beekeeper population.  The bulk
of them would dismiss many of our longer discussion threads as a
very long and tedious game of "Trivial Pursuit", played with
expensive computer equipment.

Since it is nearly impossible to speak about bees without speaking
about climate and weather, is beekeeping a mostly weather-driven
activity?

I'm surprised how many of my spring beekeeping tasks can be scheduled
with nothing more than a simple running total of "Growing Degrees
Days to date", and how my fall activities are completely dominated
by the ticking of the countdown to the approaching "first frost".

For example, I started making pollen patties a few weeks ago, and sure
enough, we had our highly-predictable "warm spell" with temps in the
50s (F) this week, so I tossed them in yesterday and this morning.
As expected, most hives had enough brood area to say that they are
"rebooting for spring".  In a week or so, we should see the first
dandelion and maple pollen coming in on the legs of foragers.

And I had a dead-out.  Lot's o bees, lots "head in a cell". They clearly
starved.  My fault, no excuses. They clearly somehow ate through their
stores more quickly than the 178 other hives.  I should be happy about
a one-half of one percent "winter loss rate", but I still feel guilty
and sick to my stomach about losing even a single colony, when I should
be dancing with joy.


        jim (A member of the "Prairie Home Battalion")

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