Again someome being misquoted as per usual. Pargyle did not write that at all. What he said was ''to maintain the colony temperature that they prefer''
Far different than the suggested reply. Has this fellow never heard of collapses (and death) in over-insulated or over-heated situations?
Two examples come to mind. Soldiers doing high stress exercise in wet suits in hot weather and babies or pets left in overheating situations, such as cars on sunny days.
Of course there are limits; it does not need much brain power to work that one out - or does it?
Thanks RAB and others, I agree ... I record the temperatures inside my well insulated long deep hive on a daily basis .. nowhere near as sophisticated a system as DerekM but what it tells me is that over last winter my bees kept the colony at an average of about 10 degrees higher than the external air temperature ... and this was with a full width mesh floor (albeit protected from draughts).
In the hot days of the summer the colony temperature was never more than the external air temperature and on the whole usually about 5 degrees less. They seem to prefer a temperature around the centre of occupancy of between 20 & 30 degrees and vary this only when the energy required to maintain the hive interior within these parameters becomes uneconomic. IE: when faced with extremes of temperature outside the hive are so influential that the insulation cannot completely eradicate the influence. I don't have the facility to monitor the temp and RH in the centre of the frames - my measurements are taken below the crown board and above the frames more or less in the centre of the hive.
Relative Humidity in the hive (which I also monitor) remains pretty constant between about 75% and 85%.
These are clearly conditions that the bees wished to maintain, they were never tightly clustered - even in the coldest weather - evident from quick observations through the clear 6mm polycarb crownboard which is sealed to the top of the hive with aluminium tape so there is no upward airflow whatsoever. I have 100mm of Kingspan insulation on top of the crownboard and an insulated apex roof on the hive and I have never seen any condensation forming on the crown board.
So ... in my simple logic ... if the bees are able to economically maintain their preferred micro climate a little easier by the addition of insulation then this has to be good for any bee colony, strong or weak. I cannot see the logic in the suggestion that, by keeping bees cold, we are breeding better bees - or allowing those colonies to die out that are incapable of withstanding the rigours of a cold hive somehow improves the gene pool.
Surely every beekeepers aim is to see to it that their bees survive the winter ... by whatever means they have at their disposal ?
I would accept that there may come a point when further insulation is not adding to the bees situation but I don't believe that I've reached that point in any of my hives yet. I didn't see my bees hanging on the front of the hive in the winter because they were too warm ... or in the summer to any great extent for that matter.
I have, however, seen bees at other apiaries in thin timber boxes with sheet metal clad roofs clustered and fanning like mad on the outside of the hive in hot weather ... all that energy going to waste ?
