Insulating hive Sleeves

[Neils]

Had an interesting email this afternoon from some guy who's made up some insulating sleeves out of the material that electronic goods tend to come packaged in:

PDF document with photos.

The only thing he didn't include in the email was how much it cost to buy.

[Calum]

hi
nice work, interesting idea, but why would you want to keep them warm?

[Neils]

Given the amount of insulation on my own hives (none) I'm not seeing a pressing need for extra insulation, maybe he could also bill them as an anti woodpecker sleeve?

[gavin]

Yes, nice idea but is it worth it?

Today I made up a few sheets of polystyrene for the colonies that don't already have them, but these will be going over the crown board and under the roof only. Most heat will be lost on top.

[Neils]

I've mailed the guy to ask what they're selling them for so we'll see. I'd think that if they cost more than a couple of pounds that you could knock up your own easily enough. I've continued to not use insulation again this year without apparent issues but I know our balmy Mediterranean climate down here obviously helps on that front.

[Calum]

Hi
none of mine are insulated apart from on the top with some sort of board made of sawdust bonded together with tar whatever thats called... Nights do get down to minus 20. Thats fine for the bees.
Keeping them cold reduces varroa, extends the longevity of winter bees and slows depletion of winter stores, (longer winter brood pause, and smaller autumn winter brood nest). You only want them to be warm when they need new brood - ie in the spring.

[Rosie]

I like Calum's comment. Side insulation couldn't be cheap enough for me. In fact I would not use them even if I was paid. We don't often see -20 here but my bees survived -18 last year and -17 the year before but they wintered particularly well on both occasions. This year has been much warmer so far but I doubt if it will make much difference to survivalbility - they will probably just eat more and emerge from the winter with more varroa and brood diseases.

Rosie

[gavin]

I'm not so sure about that, the winter survival (agree on the side insulation of course). We had serious losses here two winters back and the polystyrene hives survived much better than the wood. Is it not the case that early cold is no problem, but early warmth wastes stores and late cold is a killer for colonies with depleted stores?

This winter could be a bad one for those beekeepers who have skimped on either the feeding or the Varroa control.

[Calum]

what did the bees in the wooden hives die of? Was it the same beekeeper keeping wood and poly hives (same varroa treatment/feeding/queen quality/strength of colony in autumn)?

[gavin]

Two different large-scale beekeepers, each with polyhives and wooden hives. Plus secondhand reports of others with the same. Don't know what they died of, but whole apiaries dying was enough to persuade me that a bit of top insulation is a good idea.