Now the Northerners can laugh, but down here in the Florida panhandle we are going into Winter. The last leaves are drifting down. This week we'll start 12 weeks of 30-65 degrees F variance, days to nights.
Being mid-December, we have about 8 weeks until Carolina laurel starts to bloom and I see new white drone comb, according to my old photos. Because of the pandemic, a few nucs weren't picked up by the buyers, and reached a gangly teenage phase of fitting neither in a 5 frame hive nor a 10... only 6 - 8 frames now.
I do have R-5 insulating lids. The screened bottom boards - which have runners underneath to fit West Beetle traps - are now closed off with R-5 foam board. The runners/cleats are taller than the foam, so stuffing some pine straw underneath keeps the foam tight, but I can pull out the straw, then the foam, and scrape hive trash into a bucket now & then. I have to do this because I have lazy bees that never learned to take out the trash on account of their luxury screen feature.
My question is: seeing as these little colonies in medium boxes have 'too much space' for the next 8 weeks, what about stacking them for warmth? I could leave a feeder rim between them, "just in case." We do get those brisk 65 degree days to give them a check. The runners on the bottom board will allow foam blocks to be placed at front & back, and leave the middle for heat to rise from the colony below. This would require bring the top colony from a different yard and they would re-orient.
Is this proposed bee condo just winter angst, especially for a certain feral queen I hope to breed from? Or am I just looking for projects more creative than repainting supers? Should I just leave them bee?