I took my inner covers off for the winter, relying on the quilt box and a shim above it with two wide-open holes (each @1.25 inch in diameter), instead. Above that I had a tele cover with 1.5 " of foam tucked up inside. About half the times during the fierce cold when I opened the hives I would have some condensate on the bottom surface of the insulation. (I also have a shim below the below the QB where I fed sugar bricks, and later pollen patties, which were just plunked down on the top bars.)
When I first applied the QB I had only one hole open (the front one) and during that first interval (about 4 weeks in November to mid Dec.) the shavings appeared moist enough to me that I changed them out and opened the second hole. From that time forward the shavings were always dry to the touch. So I think that you might benefit from having a one- or two-hole shim above the QB, and leaving off the inner cover.
You might start with a shim with one open hole in the front, and another drilled but capped so you could open it up if necessary. My hives were also covered with blankets and a tarp, so the hole on the back side of the shim wasn't really open to the air, and perhaps wasn't necessary, or only mildly so. But the lack of any further palpable moisture in the shavings after I opened it seemed to be connected. (But even that time the "moisture" was so modest, it was almost imperceptible. This was my first time using QBs, so I erred on the side of changing out, assuming it might be just the tip of the iceberg, instead of a single event.)
I was glad to take my inner covers off for the winter and give them a nice long period inside my extra-dry, wood-heated house to recover from the mold they grew while over my BeeMax top-of-hive feeders in the late summer and fall. The humidity above all that open syrup made them furry, which I didn't like at all. It was a mistake to have them over the feeders. Next year I will use something else to keep the bees from getting into the feeders (probably a carpenter ant-proof screening "box" that fits down the sides of the box.)
(And thanks for the reminder about the moldy IC - mine need a week or so of sunlight and good scrubbing down with bleach water before I need them again - one more thing on my Spring Bee Chore List!)
Edited to add: I run a solid bottom board; a screened bottom board with varroa monitor plastic sheet in and a closed back slot; two deeps (and in one case ,plus a medium). All of my hives had some interior insulation consisting of (at least) a solid wooden follower board and between 0.75 - 3" of foam insulations panels outside of the followers boards on each outer side of the frames. My wintering interior space is taller and narrower than its nominal 10-frame Lang dimensions. The trick will be to reverse this before I prompt swarming.
Enj.
When I first applied the QB I had only one hole open (the front one) and during that first interval (about 4 weeks in November to mid Dec.) the shavings appeared moist enough to me that I changed them out and opened the second hole. From that time forward the shavings were always dry to the touch. So I think that you might benefit from having a one- or two-hole shim above the QB, and leaving off the inner cover.
You might start with a shim with one open hole in the front, and another drilled but capped so you could open it up if necessary. My hives were also covered with blankets and a tarp, so the hole on the back side of the shim wasn't really open to the air, and perhaps wasn't necessary, or only mildly so. But the lack of any further palpable moisture in the shavings after I opened it seemed to be connected. (But even that time the "moisture" was so modest, it was almost imperceptible. This was my first time using QBs, so I erred on the side of changing out, assuming it might be just the tip of the iceberg, instead of a single event.)
I was glad to take my inner covers off for the winter and give them a nice long period inside my extra-dry, wood-heated house to recover from the mold they grew while over my BeeMax top-of-hive feeders in the late summer and fall. The humidity above all that open syrup made them furry, which I didn't like at all. It was a mistake to have them over the feeders. Next year I will use something else to keep the bees from getting into the feeders (probably a carpenter ant-proof screening "box" that fits down the sides of the box.)
(And thanks for the reminder about the moldy IC - mine need a week or so of sunlight and good scrubbing down with bleach water before I need them again - one more thing on my Spring Bee Chore List!)
Edited to add: I run a solid bottom board; a screened bottom board with varroa monitor plastic sheet in and a closed back slot; two deeps (and in one case ,plus a medium). All of my hives had some interior insulation consisting of (at least) a solid wooden follower board and between 0.75 - 3" of foam insulations panels outside of the followers boards on each outer side of the frames. My wintering interior space is taller and narrower than its nominal 10-frame Lang dimensions. The trick will be to reverse this before I prompt swarming.
Enj.
