Hot or Cold?

[darlo]

Here I go again with silly questions! Currently I have all but one hive laid out in what I believe is known as the cold formation, where the frames run from front to back of the box, as opposed to running from side to side, with the first frame parallel to the entrance of the hive. Still with me? hope so...

I have noticed that two of the hives have built up from the east side of hive, and have been slow to build. This I have put down to cool weather, however one hive, which was a swarm, was housed in a WBC hive,as i had no more national boxes available at the time, and these were aligned in the warm style. This hive has been outstanding in its build up, and continues to grow.

Now if the cool weather has been a factor in the slow build process, if I were to rotate the cold hives, into the warm position, would this have an adverse effect on the bees within the hive? Or would they carry on as if nothing happened?

I am tempted to do this on a couple of hives, the weaker ones, and see if the results are favourable or not.

Anyone have any thoughts or comments?

Chris

[gavin]

Not a silly question, but I wouldn't get too hung up on the 'warm way' and 'cold way' descriptions. I don't think that there is much in it. A better way to help the build-up is to restrict the space available until they need it and insultate above with a sheet of polystyrene. (I didn't used to, but was persuaded by some on here that it is worthwhile)

Colonies building up from the east side might indeed be disadvantaged when the weather is colder.

Ian Rumsey (I think) showed that swarms housed in plain boxes tend to orientate their comb in the same way as their parent colony. So switching between cold and warm way might disrupt them for that reason.

[Neils]

I've got colonies using both for no other reason than my convenience when inspecting. I've not noticed any significant difference in the colonies on warm vs cold to be perfectly honest.

[Jimbo]

I am the same. I have colonies both the cold and warm way and noticed no difference. The swarm colony will build up quicker as they will be desperate to build new comb and in a WBC they will be warmer as it is doubled walled.

[Trog]

We experimented one winter with half the colonies warm way and half cold. All other factors were equal (entrances facing same way, etc.). The ones wintered warm way all built up faster than the cold way ones in the spring. Usually if we have a big colony they go cold way for the summer to assist ventilation.

[Calum]

The thinking here in Germany is that the cold formation (over a varroa mesh and with front and back open) is better to keep the colony out of brood in the winter.
Small brood nests produce more varroa than bees, which is not a death sentence for a strong colony, but for a weak one can be the tipping point.

[darlo]

Many thanks for all the replies. Gavin, thanks for the tip about covering the top, I hadn't considered that but will perhaps add one after my next inspection. I had placed some sugar syrup on last week, just before heading to Norway, and didn't want to take the chance with the weather turning for the worse.

Interesting point about the lesser brood in the colony, which presumably helps with the varroa numbers? I have to say my varroa counts have been low, bar one colony which was higher than the others, but not high enough to cause any worry. They were orientated the same way as the others.

Hopefully this rain will clear up tomorrow, but forecast doesn't seem helpful.