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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] A newbie overwinter question...
  • Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:40:25 -0400

Blair,

There is no need to insulate your hives for the winter in Piedmont North Carolina. In fact doing so can trap excess moisture which is a very bad thing.

Folks naturally think cold winter weather is bad for bees but in fact they can do better in a long cold winter than they do in a mild winter. The reason is that if the weather is good and cold, the bees go into a tight cluster and go into a bit of a carbon monoxide induced stupor. In this state they consume a lot less food stores. In areas where the weather is milder, the bees are more active and consume a lot more food. But if it is too cool to forage (less than the low 50s), they still cannot gather food so they just sit around the house and eat. What saves us in NC is that while our winters aren't consistently cold, they also aren't particularly long.

For these reasons (moisture and stores), I don't want my bees in a warm snug box during the winter.

Beekeepers in Alaska, Michigan, Maine etc. do have to worry about extreme cold for very long periods, but that is the kind of weather that freezes the engine block of your car while it is sitting in your garage. They are also concerned about deep snows suffocating their hives. They have clever ways of insulating their hives and some even store them, complete with bees, in warehouses over the winter. But they are in an entirely different situation from what we have.

You may be interested in reading A. I. Root's autobiography (the A.I. Root Company publishes "Bee Culture" magazine, "The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture", etc.). He loved to experiment, and he tried a variety of things to improve overwintering of bees in Medina, Ohio in the mid/late 1800s. His "best" ideas, such as keeping bees in a heated greenhouse, failed miserably. He is an inspiration to all of us who like to give things a try and aren't afraid to have the lesson learned be, "don't do that again!"

Randall Austin

On 9/25/2011 2:04 PM, Blair Christian wrote:
I'm trying to understand the bigger picture about overwintering...
Obviously the bees have to have sufficient food to make it through the
winter. From what I read it's possible (but difficult) to feed them
supplementally during the winter with an in hive feeder. Does anybody
around here do anything to insulate the hives? I assume that if the
bees don't expend as much energy in heating the hive, they'll be
better off. Is that a correct assumption? That line of thinking led
me to ask the question: does anybody insulate hives in the winter? If
you just have a couple hives, it seems do-able, but not something
commercially feasible. I imagine the most important part would be to
get the correct air flow in such a scenario. Just curious... For
example, I could put up a piece of 4'x4' tin as a roof, put the hive
under it, wrap it with some R-30 or 2" of styrofoam, and put tyvek or
something on the outside, but still leaving the telescoping roof on...

All of that is based on the assumption that it's the relationship
between food and cold weather that is the main source of mortality.
But I'm totally new, so is there some other source of mortality that
is just as important or more important?

Thanks,
Blair
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