interesting paper

[user 6228]

I don't know of anything published. What I have is based on seeing it in my bees. Years ago, I kept bees with a 3 inch wide opening for winter at the lower front of the hive as is typical with most hive designs. I had quite a few losses that were accompanied with heavy mold growth on the combs usually accompanied by severe dysentery in the bees. A local beekeeper showed me a cover design that included an upper vent which is opened in winter and closed for summer. Since adopting the upper entrance, I have not seen similar symptoms.

This should be considered in light that I have never used any other hive than a 3/4 inch thick pine Langstroth hive. I don't know how the bees would behave in a highly insulated hive. I can speculate that reduced need to produce heat will reduce the amount of moisture the bees produce which might eliminate the problem with mold and dysentery. The side effect of reducing heat production would be as Mobus documented that the bees do not produce enough water for winter needs.

The Achilles heel of the old leaf or straw based packing cases was that they kept the bees too cold when temperatures moderated on sunny days. Unpacked bees would take cleansing flights where the heavily packed bees would stay inside eventually suffering the consequences. I can see that the dynamics of an EPS/PIR hive would be significantly different than the old packing cases, but don't see that they will be a huge benefit to the bees.

The issue is studies that were conducted on packing were not done with any form of thermal engineering rigour. Almost no one measure the conductance of the systems they used and the conductance was not referenced to range of conductances that bees encounter. No-one investigated how long the bees needed to adjust to the change.
And rarely did investigations into survival and disease correctly separate humidity, condensation, heat loss and temperature.

Keep working on this, I suspect before it is done you will find things that most beekeepers never suspected in wintering bees.

yes I have found surprising things happening not described in the books, but as I cant at the moment establish the statistical significance of these, I keep them to myself for later study.