> > I use polystyrene hives with no top ventilation, all
> > have open mesh floors
> > and wintering so far has been much more successful
> > than with wooden boxes
> > and with less stores used.

the very same I do, except that I have a sheet of plastic over the top box,
because I use a simple polystyrene isolation in my roof and the bees love to
eat this away. So do also the chickens if the polystyrene hive boxes get a
wound. The bees propolise the plastic sheet to the top box, leaving no
aircondition.

>
> Thanks for your answere. What were your results ? Mine
> are also on mesh floors.

I think Denmark have a climate like the Canadian Vancouver area. We have
water all around and because of this a wet climate. I have good results from
my polystyrene hives. For now I have had about 10% looses,Average thrugh all
the years i have been using  polystyrene hives (more than twenty Years)

> entrance reductors I installed (while I was thinking
> they really needed it)! Sometimes, I think that I do
> not understand my bees better than my wife... ;-))

Try to use some foam gum as entrance reduction. I use this when moving my
bees or feeding them.


Best regards
Jorn Johanesson

Multilingual software for beekeeping since 1997

hive note- queen breeding and handheld computer beekeeping software

added Italian and Czechs language and made a heavy bug fixing. See the bug
report page and the what's up page

home page = HTTP://apimo.dk
e-mail [log in to unmask]

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