Winter Packing (040)

Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

Think about honey bees overwintering in a tree. There’s 4 to 6 inches of insulation, pretty good ventilation, and it’s lined with propolis. Now think of our bees living in a box with less than an inch of wood for protection. We pretty much don’t think of wintering anymore. There’s lots of bees, swarms, we can replace what we lose easily…. well, it was easy, but it’s not so much anymore. Varroa changed that.

We can protect them if we want. Insulated covers, insulated wraps, roofing paper, all manner of things we can get, and all require some level of labor to make work.

Expanded styrene boxes seem to be pretty good. Lots of insulation for both winter cold and summer heat and they use both sides of every frame. They don’t recognize warm winter days though, so there’s that.

In the old days beekeepers went to a lot of trouble to keep their bees alive overwinter and with the new controlled environment buildings, that sort of care is coming back.

Winter protection can mean different things based on where you live – after all, all beekeeping is local. However, no matter where you live, preparing for winter and protecting the colony inside a hive is something our bees need now more than ever.

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