How I assess the health of my colonies in winter. Here are links to the videos where I explain how to make and install a cheap, easy, heat efficient candy board. • Making a Candy Board I... • Candy Board Insert 2.0...
Thanks for another great video! I'm in Central Alberta and it's been a whirlwind of ups and downs with the temps here. My bees have been flying so much this winter! I checked last week to see if they needed more sugar. I had huge clusters going in to winter so I'm not upset seeing more dead in front of the hives. Weird fall, weirder winter, and we're forecasted to have a big drought this summer.
I made two changes this year based on Etienne Tardiff's advice: 1. Seal all of the seams with Tyvek tape; 2. wrap the hives in Reflectix, and tape the top of the Reflectix to the top box with Tyvek tape. It makes sense to me, as the thinnest part of the boxes are at the seams, the Reflectix helps keep in some of the heat that inevitably escapes.
