One colony going into its first winter with me. Local low is around minus 20C for a couple of weeks in January and we get a lot of freeze-thaw either side. I have enough material to build a quilt box with wood shavings, or I can buy a proper insulated wrap for about the same money. I cannot easily do both before the cold arrives, and the hive sits in an open garden with wind from the west. Which matters more?
Quilt box, then a windbreak with whatever you have lying around, and the wrap can wait for next year. Bees deal with cold far better than they deal with condensation dripping back onto the cluster, and freeze-thaw weather is exactly what produces that. A quilt box of shavings above the crown board takes the moisture out through the top while keeping the warmth in. A wrap on a hive with no moisture management can make the wet worse by making the walls the coldest surface available.
A small upper entrance is worth it in deep snow country regardless, mostly so they can get out if the bottom board is buried and so dead bees do not block the exit. The heat you lose through a 10mm notch is trivial next to that.
Do I still need a top entrance if I have a quilt box, or does that just let the heat out?
A pallet on edge or a few straw bales on the windward side costs nothing and does a surprising amount. Wind stripping heat off the box is a bigger drain than the ambient temperature over a whole winter.
Tilt the hive forward a couple of degrees too, so any condensation that does form runs out the front rather than down onto the frames.
@iron_filter_ike · 8mo ago · 2 replies
Neither matters as much as weight and mite load. A heavy, low-mite colony survives minus 20 unwrapped in an open field; a light one with mites dies in a wrapped hive at minus 5. Heft the back of that hive before you spend a weekend on carpentry.
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@openkey_owen · 8mo ago
This is the correct order of operations and it is unglamorous, which is why it gets skipped. Stores, mites, moisture, wind, then insulation.
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