Good morning Van
there really is no need to apologise - I know full well that you are 'one of the good guys'. Which is why I ended my last post with the words "best regards" - words which were meant sincerely.
All I was trying to convey was that you are continuing to question ventilation and related issues because you remain confused about them, despite what you have read, and what others say to you regarding these matters ... whereas I don't. That is - I don't anymore.
I'm nothing special, and like yourself, I too was faced with conflicting views and opinions when attempting to make sense of these issues - I've spent countless hours over many years trying to reconcile opposing theories and ideas, such as upper vs bottom entrances, and so forth. And then it gradually began to dawn on me that the only viable barometer to use when comparing contrasting forms of insulation, ventilation, feed, hive design or location etc. - indeed, the whole myriad of issues which beekeepers spend huge chunks of their lifetimes arguing about - is to simply observe whether they work or not. That is - do the bees survive and prosper in practice - regardless of the conditions under which they are kept ?
So - if your bees survive and prosper - that's ok. If they don't, then you must be doing something wrong - so alter or amend whatever is believed to be the most likely faulty candidate, until the outcome changes favourably.
By doing this, we are dispensing with any notions of 'the perfect beehive', 'perfect beehive conditions' and so on. When it comes to beekeeping, any notion of 'perfection' or 'ultimate truth' then becomes redundant. This is not some kind of academic cop-out, but a realisation and acceptance that the honey-bee is the most adaptable of creatures, and will survive and prosper under almost any conditions.
I must stress - what I wrote earlier in this thread wasn't compiled during the last half-hour, or even the last few days - but is the product of years of considering why it is that beekeepers, ever since the first days of the modern beekeeping era (say from 1850-ish onwards) have never been able to agree about 'anything' ! And what the hell has been going on since that time ? A hundred and seventy years and ten-thousand beekeeping books later ... and we're still arguing about what constitutes the 'best' beehive and 'best' beekeeping practice !
So - my contribution to all of this is to expose these ongoing arguments as being a cruel illusion. Oh - they certainly seem to have the appearance of substance right enough, and it's simplicity itself to pull extracts from scientific papers in order to give such arguments an implied credibility - but the debates continue - week on week, year on year, without ever achieving any conclusion or reconciliation.
I have long held the view that over the last 150 years or so - indeed since beekeeping practices first started to be recorded in the form of the printed word, with authority (author-ity) being thus generated, beekeeping has gradually morphed into a quasi-religion, in which separate churches have emerged: treat vs no-treat; upper vs lower entrance; minimum vs maximum insulation, Italians vs Carnies; pure-bred vs mongrels, and just as with world religions the consequence of this has been to generate polarised exclusivity: "Your God vs My God", with each group claiming their own knowledge of an Ultimate Truth.
Yet in the meanwhile, the bees just quietly go about their business, completely oblivious to any problems we humans may be wrestling with. Perhaps that's why we find them so fascinating ?
Again, "best regards",
LJ