Winter heating artificial heat

[beevet]

Over the past 30 years or so I've always wondered about artificial heat for winter hive management and I'm surprized at how little this has been discussed. As a scientist, I'm the first to realize that when humans mess with mother nature, it usually does not work. Mother nature teaches science, not the other way around. Science teaches us how to question, it doesn't always give us the correct answer.

I've heard Christmas bulbs, solar and a million ways (including doing nothing) that beeks employ to overwinter their hives. Too much heat can increase metabolic demand and cause bees to rear brood at the wrong time and eat too much food. To little heat can cause them to freeze to death. Heat can also extend inevitable death of a weak colony. So...is there a way that artificial heat can be used to quell those super cold periods without upsetting the balance inside. The ultimate questions is....how can we use artificial heat to reduce winter losses? Can it be done?

I have four nucs that I plan to artificially heat this winter for the purpose of testing. I will use a 7 watt resistor element on on a heatsink on two and 14 watts on the remaining two. I will mount the sinks in the center of the screened bottom board. I will measure temp and humidity under the inner cover all winter using cheap LaCrosse wireless sensors. I chose to not use light bulbs as they are not reliable, the glass can shatter with a drop of water and the filament can easily burn out. Winters in my area can be brutal and losses are common. My goal is to see what happens to the hives in my study group, monitor feeding/stores, brood, clustering, etc. I won't postulate results because I'm really invading mother natures territory here. I can only take wild guesses as to what will really happen.

I'd really like to hear what others have to say. Please comment.

[bnatural]

Will be interesting to see what you learn. I've thought about adding a sensor for my Vantage Pro weather station and then posting it ("And the weather in Hive #1 is a balmy 42 degrees Fahrenheit.")

I think the most important things are: 1) controlling moisture in the hive, 2) making sure there are enough winter stores, and 3) making sure the hive is snug. I don't open my hives come fall, unless I have to, so they can seal up all the cracks with propolis. I don't wrap. They have SBB, top entrances and uninsulated vent boxes over the inner cover. Temps only get down to -18F or so here, but when I lived up on the ridge line it got down to below -30F (don't know how low, because the thermometer froze), and the bees did just fine.

Let us know what you learn.

Bill

[PCM]

Here is some posts, you might want to check. Light bulb and temp. readings.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,11721.0.html

There is a whole mess of hive, winter temp. readings/graphs on the net but I forgot what web page.

My, what a simple Google search will find.

http://www.beebehavior.com/live_camera_winter.php

PCM

[franktrujillo]

since your a scientist were is your control subjects.second with 4 different hives 4 different queens can you say the test subjects have the same starting point,third are all test hives same age, another the placement of the hives were are they located i place mine in winter full sun,no heat, reduce entrance,add snow and wind break.This is what i think you will have excess moistier from the heating elements all bees will die sorry for your loss..untill then :popcorn:

[Countryboy]

Over the past 30 years or so I've always wondered about artificial heat for winter hive management and I'm surprized at how little this has been discussed.

Actually, it has been discussed a lot. (or rather, the lack of need for artificial heat) Do a search on the overwintering barns in Canada. The bees already produce heat - the next problem is venting away the excess heat.

[Panhandle Scott]

I would think that producing aa temperature warmer than the actual hive would create more harm than good....with a warmer outiside hive temp it might induce bees to congregrate more toward an opening an thus freeze them since their instincts will say Spring is coming.

Also warmer temps might make them eat their Winter stores at a faster rate since they might become more active and with snow on the ground they will not be out and about collecting pollen or nectar.

Just my 02 from Florida.

[sjj]

... I have four nucs that I plan to artificially heat this winter for the purpose of testing. I will use a 7 watt resistor element on on a heatsink on two and 14 watts on the ...

I'd really like to hear what others have to say. Please comment.


I would definitely use less then 5 Watt. Good luck!

[SwedeBee1970]

Sounds interesting to me, however, why help ? Assisting mother nature might confuse them into believing it's a different time of year. My mentor of bee keeping (54 years in the business) tells me if they can't find a way to survive then they should die. This is what I'm going to do this fall: I have an extra white plastic water heater cover. Wrapping it around the body and not the top or entrance will insulate them enough in harsh weather climates to make it easier to maintain a temperature. As far as the lid is concerned, leave the inner lid with exit hole inside of the main lid for moisture ventilation. Make sure the entrance hole (1-2" wide) is directly below the inner lid hole. The idea is that the moisture inside can escape with the humidity the bees create in warmth. Some varieties, like my Russians would even produce brood during the winter. http://greenanything.yolasite.com . Under Honey Bees. My mentor says that he's done almost everything officials said not to do and got it to work. So much for learning anything on the subject.

[beevet]

Wow, I'm getting some good feedback so it seems that this really has been discussed before. Thank you everyone. The idea behind artificial heat didn't start with bees. It's been used for years in drosophila studies for quanitative genetics with great success on many levels. My thinking behind any of this is based on the fact that winter losses are greater in the north and less in the south. I know there are other variables but the south temperatures are warmer. Someone mentioned not going higher than 5 watts which sounds reasonable to me. Using a ceramic resistor on a heatsink prevents hotspots, is weather proof and will never burn out or shatter like a light bulb would. This is done in bat houses in some areas and works really well. Is it interfering with mother nature?? Of course. The whole concept of medicine is based on interfering with nature. Everyone is happy when the pills work and blames us when they don't. Good medicine is capturing beneficial aspects of nature and putting them to work for all of us. Unfortunately, this means research, experimentation, trials, etc. before we finally get it right. The hives I'd like to study are all splits of almost identical age and production characteristics. All Carniolans too and yes, there is a huge control group. I can study something this simple. It won't be blinded though. Heck, I'm not shooting for FDA here...unless someone out there wants to market hive heaters and will fund my study :lpf:

The hypothesis - the temperature would only marginally increase, the effects of super cold snaps would marginally decrease, the tiny amount of heat generated would help chimney moist air out the top entrance. Convective heat also counters moisture just by itself (causes water molecules to be further apart - less water overall). It may also change the position of the cluster but maybe not. Instead of increasing metabolic food consumption, marginal heat might actually reduce metabolic demand which might make them eat less instead of more. The artificially heated hives may survuve or die. The controls may survive or die. Power failure might be catastrophic.

It would be fun to see if a study has been done on bees to equate food consumption to temperature. We know that temperature has an effect, I just wonder if it's been studied and quantified.

Thanks for some good discussion. Lets keep it going.

[Josh Carmack]

Try it let us know how it works. I'm more inclined to allow them to share heat VS adding heat. My plan in the future is to build something similar to the bee houses you see in Europe where the hives are all built into a building with access from the inside. I'm wanting to design it in a modular way so single doubles nucs etc can all fit and still be easily removed and placed singularly during season.

[Michael Bush]

Finsky (Finman, Bobo etc.) has posted many times on many forums about using terrarium heaters on weak hives and nucs in Finland. Anything more than that is probably too much heat and in a strong hive that's probably unnecessary.

[doc25]

I wonder if the bees will stay near the heat source and possibly not move for food. Interesting to say the least.

[Roland]

I have used "heat trace" , or the product sold to us in the snow belt to keep the rain gutters thawed. It has 2 wires in parrellel(sp?) with a plastic containing carbon dust, making it self regulating. At one time, it was available in different self regulating temperatures. It is rated in watts per foot. Cut off what you need. I used some with a PID controller and a SSR, set to just over freezing. Had marginal success.

Roland

[beevet]

Cut off what you need. Roland

Hmmm. How many watts did you use for each hive? SBB? Where did you locate the element? What type of upper/top entrance (if any) did you provide? Same overall setup as your unheated hives?

Since the wire will spread the heat dissipation over it's entire length, I wonder if it sends heat to unnecessary parts of the hive (ourside of cluster). With the wire, I'm betting that location and configuration (straight run vs. close zigzag vs. winding) would make a difference. Maybe not.

My Grandfather always said to bed bees for the winter like rose bushes. Feed. Then mulch well to avoid February buds. He always had the most amazing roses AND hives. The problem is...there's no science project in that!

[Roland]

I set about 8 hives in a block on a wood platform. Built a 2 inch thick EPS house over and around, but not under, with a few spaces open on the bottom. Just wrapped the heat trace around the stack about twice. Thermo couple in the middle low. It did not work well, but did get a few weak hives to make it through that otherwise would have perished for sure. With a PID controller, wattage is not critical, as long as you have enough.

Roland

[sqkcrk]

I'd really like to hear what others have to say. Please comment.

Don't be insulted, but you are thinking like a human being, not a honeybee. Honeybees don't heat their house, they keep themselves warm.

I'd be interested in hearing what your experience is when you do artificially heat your nucs or hives.

One thing to keep in mind is that it probably isn't cost effective. Just because you add heat doesn't mean that they will survive the winter, what w/ all of the other things that kill bees besides starvation. Cold doesn't kill bees.

[Roland]

No offense taken Sqkcrk. Did an experiment with different temps back in 1974. It was a science fair project. Now that process control software is available, it might be time to revisit that subject. (P.S. , earned a 4 year tuition scholarship at the fair)


Roland