@tjc1 wrote as enlightenment for those lost or confused or just simple
dunno-karntno [trans: "never learn"] types;
"If you have supers of honey to give them, there's nothing better than that."
At the risk of having even more of a deluge of contradiction come my way than
has been noted I am finally well ready to commit to what should work for NH
B'Keeps in wintery climes - and you guys will have all Spring and most of Summer
to think on it.
Those set rock solid on not recognising dewpoint, the use of mediums to winter
in, and the "as delivered from Mann (et al) box" just skip this post entirely. I'll do
my bit and ignore those distractions...heh
The solution lies in two prime elements of clusters:
1. access to nutrient
2. heat transfer
Bees cannot exchange heat over wood, it is an insulator. Clusters forced to move
around wood will be thinned, likely to the point their collective energy output is
overcome by the ambient temperature.
So... don't force it on them. Grant them open spaces of only comb to 'graze'
over, food sources which benefit also from the heat transfer.
Not always can all colonys be taken to winter with ample stores. It is not always
poor management to blame for inadequate honey stores as dearths and colony
splits can happen to anyone anywhere, along with other localised inputs to the
quantity and quality of bee products.
So... MAN has to look at artifical stores, providing same in sufficient quantity,
wholly accessible to a grazing cluster without wandering about to feed.
An "advancing front" of bees moving through the winter stores AS A GROUP.
How?
Simple, I reckon.
Manufacture a fulldepth frame sized backbone to hold concerntrated
sugar based stores in lieu of whatever frames in a single fulldepth Lang
are not fully drawn and backfilled by end of Fall.
I am thinking a spun-sugar type product as "crumble bar" which would
stick to a backbone and be structurely sound in holding bees - that is, not
break up under the weight of the bee pileup.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_CrumbleI'd think the choclate can be skipped... ya'll might give the lil' buggers
chronic diarehoaia (sp).
One FD.Lang with insulated lid - and adequate ventilation to hold maybe a
max 60%RH - stuffed with a full 10(ten) frames of mixed stores, should be
plenty to hold around 20K... given some stats recently posted on consumption.
Has to be worth looking at.
And should someone run off to patent a proven model I only ask that 10%
of profits go to brain cancer research, institution of choice.
----- thunkabowdeet..hey ;-)
Bill