Bee cozy wraps

[Ken Cameron]

Sorry I missed last month's meeting on overwintering since I have so many questions as a first year beekeeper going into winter. Does anyone have experience or advice on using NOD's bee cozies? I am going into winter with a pair of hives that are both 3 deep boxes tall and full of reserves. I ordered the largest cozy they sell, but it's only for 2 deep hives. Will this work? Should I tape together a 1 deep + 2 deep cozy? Only insulate the top 2 boxes? Bottom 2? Also, the cozy comes with a thick insulation pad that goes under the telescoping top cover, but apparently stays in its plastic package (I had assumed it would be insulating and absorbent). Thoughts on that? Thanks!

[Paul Zelenski]

I don't have much experience with cozies (I don't use them), but if you use those, just put them on the top two boxes. The bees will move up out of the bottom box by the time the cozies are helpful anyway.

> On Oct 14, 2016, at 10:52 AM, Ken Cameron <kmca...@wisc.edu> wrote:
>
> Sorry I missed last month's meeting on overwintering since I have so many questions as a first year beekeeper going into winter. Does anyone have experience or advice on using NOD's bee cozies? I am going into winter with a pair of hives that are both 3 deep boxes tall and full of reserves. I ordered the largest cozy they sell, but it's only for 2 deep hives. Will this work? Should I tape together a 1 deep + 2 deep cozy? Only insulate the top 2 boxes? Bottom 2? Also, the cozy comes with a thick insulation pad that goes under the telescoping top cover, but apparently stays in its plastic package (I had assumed it would be insulating and absorbent). Thoughts on that? Thanks!
>

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[capitalb...@tds.net]

We've used Bee Cozies for about 10-11 years now and have stocked/sold them for 6 years. The two story cozy is all you need even on a three deep hive. The cozy is actually taller than 2 deeps and when you wrap, you keep the cozy up on the upper deeps. The bottom deep on a three deeps is typically filled with pollen or is mostly empty toward the bottom of the frames as the bees structure it for winter, so it provides some dead air space. To hold the cozy toward the top of the hive we use a long wood screw, screwed into the face of the lowest hive body and then let the cozy rest on that. We don't care for the pillow that NOD makes for the top of the hive and that is why we don't stock and sell the pillows with the cozies. We only stock the cozies. We have run temperature monitoring outside the cozy and under the cozy for two winters on a couple hives. In the mornings through mid-day or so in winter as the sun is shining and the outside temperatures come up there is a lag in temperature rise under the cozy. As the sun starts to go down the reverse happens in that the under wrap temperature drop lags behind the outside temperature drop and depending on the solar gain from the previous day we've often sometimes seen where the under wrap temperature never gets back down to the outside temperature in the coldest part of the morning, but instead starts to trend upward again as the sun rises. But as your aware getting a few bright sunny winter days in a row is not common in Wisconsin. Most days are overcast or partly sunny. On the overcast days the temps outside the wrap and under it are the same. On days that are partly sunny there will be the upward lag from out to in and the downward lag from in to out. We have done monitoring with tar paper wraps and cardboard wraps as well, but don't have the amount of data we have with the cozies. The temperature swings are more dramatic with both, but that may not be a bad thing on some days when there is a short amount of sun and then becomes overcast. The rapid gain in a short time may allow the cluster to move more readily in the hive vs. and insulated wrap on those days. But they work the reverse way when the sun goes away as solar radiators. That is why you the cardboard wraps have an option for loose or snug fit (loose allows a sheet of styrofoam to fit under the cardboard wrap) and why some use variations of foam board under tar paper. What we haven't done with any of the three approaches is to monitor outside wrap, under wrap and inside hive temps and maybe this upcoming winter we'll get there with it. The wrapping method (or lack of wrapping), like many things in beekeeping, varies by beekeeper and there is a nice research paper that was generated in the 1950-60s at UW Madison titled "Thermology of Wintering Honey Bee Colonies" that is well worth reading again this time of year, just Google the title.

Rich

Capital Bee Supply

Madison, WI

[Ken Cameron]

Thanks for that reference, Rich. A fascinating read. In the end, I suppose the last sentence of the summary pretty much says it all, "Under normal winter conditions either insulated or noninsulated colonies should survive at Madison, Wis."

[William Palmer]

All the wrapping and feeding will bee for not unless you get the mites under control.

On Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 8:31 AM, Ken Cameron <kmca...@wisc.edu> wrote:

Thanks for that reference, Rich.  A fascinating read.  In the end, I suppose the last sentence of the summary pretty much says it all, "Under normal winter conditions either insulated or noninsulated colonies should survive at Madison, Wis."

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[Jimmy Buff]

It seems that the insulation factor for either Bee cozy or tar paper is negligible, but what they provide is solar gain (white hive-->black hive) and perhaps some wind protection. They also may provide a bit of a deterrent to the nosy beekeeper from breaking those important seals to "just get a peak". 😀

Mites, bees, feed, moisture, heat, location...it's a system and wrapping ones hives can be part of that system.

[Greg V]

I have a question about solar gain - do we really want it?
Might as well post it under the "wraps" as relevant.

From what I read is seems it is best to keep the bees at steady refrigerator temperature (about 40-45F) for as long as possible.

The temperature jumps from solar gain may be actually disrupting the steady bee status (if the wall is thin and highly thermal conductive).
Also, the solar gain maybe directly on the surface; that does not necessarily translate across the wall (if the wall is thick and not conductive much).

With that, for myself I would prefer a thicker, not so much conductive wall and would rather depend on steady internal hive temperature and let the average external temperature to drive my bees winter mode.
I would rather try to prevent the solar gain from disrupting the steady bee cluster by the excessive temperature jumps.
With that, the wraps sound good as insulator, but why black?
I would rather make them light in color to avoid the solar gain.

Yes/no?
Why/why not?