Hello
This will be my first winter with the bees in Wisconsin, this is the way it looks right now, I have 2 deeps and a honey super on top. The 2 deeps had some honey on the sides, I did not think it was enough so I left the top honey super on for them. The bottom entrance has the 1/4 by 5 inch long opening open. All three boxes have a 3/4 inch hole I made for air during the Summer, (the bees used the holes and never used the bottom entrance much) I bought an insulated top cover (the one with a 2 inch thick insulation board in it) this cover or top has a 1/4 by about 3 inch long air entrance / vent hole. Sooooo, I have 5 openings on the front of the hive, it gets very cold here even down to -25 F here in Wisconsin. My question for the cold weather people should I close off any of the three 3/4 diameter holes with a cork or make the bottom entrance opening smaller?? I am worried that I may have too many openings. Thanks for any help.
Brian
reduce your lower entrance to the smallest size. about 1 inch. if you have solid bottom boards you might want to leave one hole open, but the bees may block it anyway. you can cork the others or just duct tape them, but be sure to back the tape so that bees don't get stuck on it. i'd leave the highest one open. it should be farthest from the cluster and any brood for now.
if you have screened bottom boards and even if you have put the inserts in, i would no use any other opening. this is my preference, but you'll see that others have other ideas :-)
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I looked Wisconsin forecast. The weather is like here , day temp uner freezing point an snowfall. You cannot do much now.
But for future wintering I tell that the most important thing is to reduce the the hive space for winter. If the hive has in late summer brood in one box, they need only one box for winter. If brooding is only 5 frames, they need 5 frames for winter.
- all extra room away during winter. It reduce water condensation and mold formation and keeps the cluster warm. It helps a lot spring build up.
- If you had in summer 3 box the hive need maximum one box. The order of frames are t
*wall
*foundation or white comb. Dark and pollen frames catch mold.
*pollen frame
*brood combs or brown empty combs
* pollen
* foundation
lower entrance is kept wide . I have 8 mm x 25 mm opening. It need to be big because snow and dead bees stuck the air way. ( not like Kathyp says, the minimum)
- mouse guard.
- the small opening up is necessary to keep open during winter.
- the fast bottom the hive slanting forwarn that water comes out from bottom.
- let bees to be in peace. Don't touch the hive during winter rest.
- now it is time to give oxalic acid trickling against varroa.
- get geotestile and surround the hive against wind and snow. Leave an air space around the hive.
finski is right about the snow. i still use the smallest entrance, but i do put wood against the front of the hives to make a kind of A frame to protect from the snow and the hard wind we get here. you don't want your entrance blocked by either ice or snow.
Glad I live in the South! :-D Don't have to worry about snow...
...DOUG
KD4MOJ
Had a little snow way down here last year. You could see it in the sky but it would melt before it hit the tree tops.
Bees did fine but all (a lot) of my tropical fruit plants bought the farm.
Scott
As Finski mentioned. The hive probably should have been reduced to one deep and the one med. that had your honey over them. I have the 3/4" holes in my boxes also and they all get corks in them and the screened bottoms get the inspection boards all but about a 1" from closed and the inner cover vent open. Our extreams are short term -10 to -20
My advice is that they should bee warm on top and have ventilation down below.
Heat rises , to minimize heat losses insulate the roof = lower amount off winter food for energy keeping the hive warm.
Ventilation below , will also vent out condensation ,+ make sure that dead bees cannot block the ventilation or you will ha a hive of dead bees in the spring due to suffocation.
It is also preferable if they are siting tightly in their hive , if they have a lot of space it will bee harder for them to warm up the extra space = more winter syrup. edward :-P
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In mild winter bees can fly out to die. In harsh weather bees die inside and may block the lower entrance. Often nosema kills half of cluster and that blocks the entrance..
In -20 C respiration air condensates inside and make snow around the sluster. During mild weather snow melts and drips onto bottom. That is why solid bottom should slant forwards.
In solid bottom it is good to have tiny holes in a back part of bottom. When air moves there, it keeps bottom dry.
Often the bottom is full of dead mouldy bees. It seems bad but bees stand it.
Yeah, I know this is just arguing semantics, but Heat doesn't rise, HOT AIR rises. The reason that happens is cold air is denser, and pushes the hot air up being pulled down by gravity.
This is useful for ventilation, but does nothing to keep bees warm. Bees warm the cluster, not the space around it. Being in an enclosed space does more to keep drafts and enemies out rather than act as insulation.
Interestingly, I found in a thread with Michael Bush somewhere that water vapor rises. I looked it up, and it's true! Air is 33% heavier than water vapor, so humidity would collect at the top of the hive regardless of temperature.
Quote from: CapnChkn on November 21, 2010, 02:47:55 PM
and pushes the hot air up being pulled down by gravity.
, but does nothing to keep bees warm. Bees warm the cluster, not the space around it. Being in an enclosed space does more to keep drafts and enemies out rather than act as insulation.
What ever you think the heat rises up and if the is no cminley open, the heat stays inside.
What ever the phenomenon is the walls, the ceiling and the bottom keeps the house warm and so it does to honey bees.
Honey bee is the only apis, which invent to make the hive into cavity. So it has opportunitys to sperad to north. Asian bee A. cerana make its hive in open place and keeps cluster heat 36C the whole year.
Quote
Air is 33% heavier than water vapor, so humidity would collect at the top of the hive regardless of temperature.
Not at all. A warm air may have more ewater in it and when temnp falls down, there is a dew point some where. Cold is out and so are the walls cold. Water vapour condensated onto coldest surface. If the top cover hoes not have enough insulation, and it is the colder surface than walls, respiration air condensates onto cover. When you add inslutaion, the walls are colder and they gather condensation water. If the hive interrior is cold, the condensation happens on the surfaces of combs.
Murfreesboro TN is a little bit warm place. It seems to be now over +20C day temp. We have here snow 20 cm and forecast to my beehive place is -10C
last winter I had a small 3-frame nuc in firewood shelter. Temp was outside -20C - -30C. When I looked into the nuc. The cluster occupied the half of the space and the rest of space was full of snow which had born from respiration.
The distance between snow and the cluster was 2 inch. I put into the nuc 3W heater to save my nuc.
Actually the snow acts as insulator like snow in eskimo's iglu.
http://ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/saa/paikalli.html?Keywords=&station=2830¶m=4&map=1&place=Kouvola (http://ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/saa/paikalli.html?Keywords=&station=2830¶m=4&map=1&place=Kouvola)
Finski, my friend, I am not sure what your argument is. I didn't say the inside of the cavity would not be warmer because of the bees, I said the bees didn't heat the inside of the cavity, they heated the cluster. Thank you for explaining why everyone says to insulate the roof, I have been wondering what good that would do.
It makes no difference where the vapor condenses. The "humidity" will rise. Water VAPOR is lighter than air, not water CONDENSATE. Here is the chart from The Engineering Toolbox
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-gravities-gases-d_334.html (http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-gravities-gases-d_334.html)
showing Air as having a specific gravity of 1.000, and Water Vapor having a specific gravity of 0.6218, meaning, in layman's terms, that water vapor is 1 - .6218 = .3782 or 37.8% lighter. For all practical purposes, 1/3 lighter (Actually 2/5 now that I have the numbers in front of me.).
The colder the environment, the denser the gas. It won't change the weight of the substance. In other words, water vapor at 0° C will still weigh the same per number of molecules as it does at 20° C. However the weight of a set volume (say 1 Liter) of that gas will increase, because there are more molecules of that gas there.
And I feel ya on the cold, I spent one cold winter in Minnesota. I had arrived on New Years eve around midnight, it was -33° F (-36° C). Some of the coldest winter temperatures in North America happen there.
Dr B
I think you will be ok. I would plug the three holes with corks. I would wrap with felt in addition to your top insulation board.
There are almost as many opinions on how to winter, how many boxes are needed as beekeepers. The university of MN recommends three deeps for wintering. Most recommend two deeps. Some will say one deep and a medium is enough. The whole point for the most part is to make sure they have enough stores for winter, that condensation does not become and issue and that they have an exit available for cleansing flights when it gets warm enough to do so or so dieing bees can exit and die outside the hive.
University of MN poster for wraping hives up for winter
http://www.extension.umn.edu/honeybees/components/pdfs/posters/Poster%20164%20wrap%20for%20winterTP%208x11.pdf (http://www.extension.umn.edu/honeybees/components/pdfs/posters/Poster%20164%20wrap%20for%20winterTP%208x11.pdf)
I winter mine in two deeps, wrap in fanfold foam insulation that is supposed to vent moisture then wrap in tar paper. I put on a hive top fondant feeder with a 1/2 opening for top vent. I use plywood for a wind block and cover this with felt which acts as a solar thermal panel. Snow is not a problem cause felt wall and felt on hives melts snow away. I have seen bees fly out for cleansing flights on sunny days in upper twenty's. You know your bees are alive when day after a fresh snow you have dead bees laying in snow.
There are many opinions on whether wrapping hive with felt is a good or bad idea but i believe that the felt allows the hive to warm up enough on sunny days for the bees to move to honey that they need to stay warm and alive.
Quote from: CapnChkn on November 21, 2010, 10:42:42 PM
It makes no difference where the vapor condenses. The "humidity" will rise. Water VAPOR is lighter than air, not water CONDENSATE. Here is the chart from The Engineering Toolbox
It surely does in my climate. 15 kg winter food produces 10 litre water via respiration.
If the hive is moist, it suffers badly for nosema. Hives do better here when snow do not cover hives totally.
In autumn and in spring the ventilation of hives is very different. In spring the cluster produces higher heat and it keeps the interior dryer.
Many say that cold does not kill bee but But when I heat the hive with 3W terratium heater
it keeps small colinies alive which otherwice will die.
Text shakes so much that I must continue here.
I live at the level of Anchorage Alaska.
In USA and in UK folks do not understand the meaning of insulation, relative moisture and dew point.
They like to ventilate more the hive than in hot summer. However the colony is 25% that of summer size.
I have kept bees in noninsulated wooden boxes ( 30 mm wall) and the consumpion of winter food was 50% higher than in insulated box. My hives use on average 20 kg sugar between Semptember to April.
If the hive has brood it will die before December. Sometimes I have those hives and they die even if I add food during winter.
Starving is not at all a problem . Nosema make most promlems and many queens loose their ability of good laying. If I notice chalkbrood in the hive, I liquidate the queen and join the bees.
It happens to angry hives same thing. I practice selection during spring. That is why I need extra hives 20%.