Photo of heat escaping from a hive cluster?

[jimbeekeeper]

Hi ALL

I have just taken this picture of one of my hives; it shows a circle where the frost has melted on the metal roof.

Do you think it could be from the heat of the cluster?

I have on the crown boards of all of my hives a section of carpet, but having just increased my house loft insulation to over 350mm (see my thread on loft insulation) I have some spare so thinking about adding more "loft" insulation above the carpet (under the roof)

 

[tony350i]

hi,

i do insulate all of my hives and do not see it being a problem, but if you do it to extreme you will have to consider what the hives have as far as store go.

 

[jimbeekeeper]

My other thought was, if you insualte them and feed them early will that make them think condtions and flow are better than they realy are?

 

[tony350i]

if you add pollen sub etc that would increase brood rearing and to take advantage off any oil seed rape near to your hives the sooner you start the better.

i feed sub


once you start don't stop feeding until natural pollen is coming in.

give them space and look out for swarming near the time the rape flower starts to fall

its a good time to make increases and nuc's to sell on

sorry to answer your qestion it will help a bit but not as much as pollen sub/real pollen

 

[jimbeekeeper]

Thats my plan Tony.

So on with the extra insulation then, and I will be knocking them nucs out earlier this year.

PS forgot to say, given the warm day today (8degc) I quickly wipped the crown board off the hive, and yes the cluster was exaclty below and the size of the melted area.

All looked well, spread over 7 or 8 frames. They had eaten most of the outer frames and started on the second ones in.