On this forum there is a small cohort of individuals who believe that you cannot have too much insulation.
I think you might find a cohort of one, who runs around two thousand colonies, that has changed to better insulated hives and, if not already, would only run with the better insulated hive type.
I would never ever say one cannot have too much insulation. Within reason, insulation is good and costs very little. Replacing one dead queen in spring (assuming no bees were required to be bought in at the same time) could pay for all the insulation needed above the crownboards for ten hives, maybe more. Payback is likely less than two years, even if no losses were incurred (ie - less winter stores consumed).
*ells bells, they knew about this over a hundred years as go, yet there are some dinosaurs amongst us who would prefer their colonies to consume more stores, lose far more heat energy from the hives than necessary and, topping that, advocate others (with weaker colonies?) to risk having them die through the cold (or dampness).
Remember, too, there are those who would twist the colony winter loss figure by use of inappropriate statistics. Think here - what is the average colony loss of three beekeepers, one with 0% losses, one with 50% losses and the third with 100% losses. The answer is NOT the average of their losses (50% in this example) unless they all have the same number of colonies!
One thing is certain, for the one colony owner the difference between 0 and 100 percent is the loss of one colony and that single loss can be down to not adding a quid's worth of insulation above the crownboard. Go figure, for yourself, the common sense in that! The obvious answer, btw, is zilch.
On top of that, they are no longer a beekeeper and would need a whole new colony to start again. Now, is it really worth them taking the risk and not insulating at all? I think not.
I think you might find a cohort of one, who runs around two thousand colonies, that has changed to better insulated hives and, if not already, would only run with the better insulated hive type.
I would never ever say one cannot have too much insulation. Within reason, insulation is good and costs very little. Replacing one dead queen in spring (assuming no bees were required to be bought in at the same time) could pay for all the insulation needed above the crownboards for ten hives, maybe more. Payback is likely less than two years, even if no losses were incurred (ie - less winter stores consumed).
*ells bells, they knew about this over a hundred years as go, yet there are some dinosaurs amongst us who would prefer their colonies to consume more stores, lose far more heat energy from the hives than necessary and, topping that, advocate others (with weaker colonies?) to risk having them die through the cold (or dampness).
Remember, too, there are those who would twist the colony winter loss figure by use of inappropriate statistics. Think here - what is the average colony loss of three beekeepers, one with 0% losses, one with 50% losses and the third with 100% losses. The answer is NOT the average of their losses (50% in this example) unless they all have the same number of colonies!
One thing is certain, for the one colony owner the difference between 0 and 100 percent is the loss of one colony and that single loss can be down to not adding a quid's worth of insulation above the crownboard. Go figure, for yourself, the common sense in that! The obvious answer, btw, is zilch.
On top of that, they are no longer a beekeeper and would need a whole new colony to start again. Now, is it really worth them taking the risk and not insulating at all? I think not.
