Now that you posted where you're from and it's NSW, I'm confused that you think you have any winter...
A populist ideal held by many of our Northern Americas brethren, Michael.
As I have so recently discovered, well entrenched it is too :-)
NSW winter is as different to SA's as WA's winter is to winter in the NT, where
there is none, really. The NT is mid teens but dry, and so bees work.
Likewise here in FNQ, however we get rain, so no working in the rain.
From reads - and some travel - much the same could be said for the Americas
yet the scale is entirely more dramatic in variation.
So, in my mind, it is the thermal cutoff point that is relevant.
At what temperature/RH in which zone do bees begin to cluster in
warming and so not move around so much, let alone fly to forage.
Where hive design allows heat loss/air ingress, at what finite thermals do bees
begin to move to other frames in the hive or indeed up into stores, consuming
food.
For FNQ it is around the low teens (14Celcius/80%+RH)... nothing moves
outside the hive, and if one is unlucky enough to have to open a hive up
it is seen bees are well clustered with only internal tumbling happening.
Where those conditions prevail for a week or more significant amounts of
stores are consumed.
But our "winter" is our Wet Season which used to last for 3 months but we
haven't seen that in years now. Come December/January it is important to
have adequate stores on board to get through to late March, April in some
past Wet Seasons.
The bit you want to read first :-)))
Sure you guys in some zones get down to -40F/-40C but at what ambient temp
do the bees cluster at? Tell me I am wrong in believing it is way
way above 32F/0C???
NSW, Victoria, SA, Tasmania and lower WA often get well below 32F/0C with
winter declared at around 15F/12C. And let's not talk wind chill factor
which spins it all sideways! :-)
Cheers.
Bill