Packing Hives with Anne Frey (203)

Episode 202 – Plain Talk: Long Forgotten Equipment

Jim Tew: Beekeepers, it's early October. That doesn't mean much except it's the fall season, pumpkins and cinnamon and occasionally brisk nights, and then your mind changes from spring, summer, and honey flows and you begin to think about, "How are we going to get these bees through the winter and what should I be doing?" In my experience with bees, all down through the years, this packing thing has been yes and no, up and down, right and wrong, pack with what, never pack. Always pack. What do you mean pack, Jim?

In some way insulate the hive so that it can survive the winter better. Anne Frey is here with me. If you can hang on, we want to talk about the ups and downs, the yeses and nos of packing in a conversational format. I'm Jim Tew. I'm at Honey Bee Obscura where about once a week we talk about something to do with practical beekeeping.

Anne Frey: Hey, everybody. It's Anne Frey from Betterbee.

Jim: Anne, thank you so much for being here. I always appreciate the time that you and Betterbee spend letting us talk about bees.

Anne: It's fun to be here, Jim. I'm glad to chat with you.

Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast. Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honeybees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honeybees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honeybees.

Jim: In my lifetime, sometimes I packed insulated hives, other times I tried to use specifically insulated hives. They were expanded polystyrene foam and they touted that you don't have to pack these hives, they're already insulated. At other times, I've expressed concern that wood doesn't have much of an R-value and just that box hive there isn't really the warmest thing going.

Anne: It's like R one or less for most wooden hives.

Jim: It really is cool. What are your experiences, what are your first thoughts on packing or not packing? We'll discuss it some here.

Anne: If you think of the way bees live in the wild, in a vertical hollow tree, the walls of that tree are pretty darn thick. They're at least three, maybe seven inches thick all around. That is a lot more insulation than our hives that are made out of lumber. It's a lot more buffer in the winter for temperature control. I'd say that any kind of insulation that you can give to them is going to be actually a more natural amount of insulation in helping them to regulate things during the winter.

Jim: The other thing that you didn't mention that I know you know, is that a lot of times that rotted tree is punky inside and that punky wood serves to absorb moisture and hold it.

Anne: Oh yes. Good point.

Jim: Then as things heat up in the spring and brood rearing begins to kick in and the nest temperature is increased, then that humidity is coveted. It's helpful for the bees to maintain the humidity of the brood nest.

Anne: The inside of a tree is really not what we've recreated except for the verticality of a Langstroth hive. In the past, people used to pack the hives. Way in the past, they would put sawdust around them and be holding it in with an additional larger box. There'd be a wall of sawdust held in by a huge crate. That was probably because they used sawdust for insulation back then, but it also probably acted more like that punky wood.

Jim: I have photos of that very process. I think they were at Iowa State University. They put four single-story hives on a customized communal bottom board and then there were collapsible walls. These were the old slatted weatherboard walls. These things were heavy now. These four sides were put around those four colonies. The entrances lined up so that they had an entrance through this and then that made a big box that had four hives in it. Then you're exactly right, they filled it full of sawdust, put an outer cover on it, and that was the wintering process.

When I looked at that picture, I thought how much work that was to get those big box sides out, to get those hives on that communal bottom board and then haul in all that sawdust and then next spring put it all away. Where? Back in storage somewhere. I marveled at how much those people worked to want to raise their colony compared to how little I work now.

Anne: It's ironic because a lot of houses back then just had nothing in the walls. They were freezing and then people were doing so much to do this insulation on the beehives.

Jim: That's a good point. I guess because they could build a bigger fire. Those old houses were cold. You're right.

Anne: Do you remember a kind of a style of wrapping two hives next to each other with tar paper and then putting a pile of hay on top and curling the tar paper over it and then maybe more tar paper above it or maybe the telescoping outer cover was plunked on the folded over edges and it's tied around with hay bale string. It was a whole process that somebody in my club, an elderly man was a real fan of.

Jim: I remember 80% of that. I think there were all kinds of variations on a theme on this tar paper thing. Two colonies were wrapped and then there was a hole punched for the upper entrance and there was a bottom entrance until the snow came that was available to the bees. Then on three sides, hay bales were stacked up around it. What? Help me out. Was the purpose then the sun's heat was supposed to absorb through the black tar paper and keep the colony warmer in addition to the hay bales?

Anne: Yes. That's what I feel like they were talking about. When I started out beekeeping, I only had an ancient textbook so I had the disadvantage of only knowing the old-fashioned things. Then I learned that people don't do those things anymore. The hay is good for insulation and maybe the tar paper was used just because it was the stuff that people had back then, but it must have gathered in some heat. You mentioned the upper entrance and I know that some people are disagreeing about whether hives should have an upper entrance or not or think of it as a place for some air to circulate out. I like to think of it as an upper exit, entrance, whatever you want to call it.

Because during the winter, sometimes there's a snow covering your entrance or sometimes towards the end of winter there might be a layer of dead bees down there or the cluster may have risen. It's risen from the bottom deep towards the top deep so why not let them have an exit closer to themselves? They don't have to walk down 15 inches and dig out. That's why I like the upper entrance. It all is wrapped up with whether you're insulating or not, this upper entrance thing.

Jim: You're exactly right. I got some more thoughts and I'm sure you do too but let's take a break and hear from our sponsor.

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Jim: When you and I are doing these sessions, I scramble to keep all my thoughts in mind because you say so many interesting things that provoke thoughts, and then by the time that I can put it in, I've forgotten what they are. One of the things I wanted to ask, and I've never thought of, I was casually saying the tar paper wrap is primarily to absorb the sun's temperature, the sun's heat. That warms the colony up. Is that right to this point?

Anne: I think it's valid physics. If there's a dark tree trunk just standing in the snow, you'll see that the snow there real close to the tree trunk has melted down into a pit. There is some warmth just because of dark colors with the cold.

Jim: Now this is where I'm going. Then none of this works at night. It's a long cold night for the bees, isn't it? Because there's no sun's warming energy.

Anne: No, but there's the air around the cluster undoubtedly is a little bit warmer inside than outside. They don't really heat the whole inside of the hive, though, they're mainly just heating their bodies and staying really tight on the outside of the cluster to conserve the energy. I'm thinking that the air just outside of that cluster is a tad warmer than exterior air, so the insulation would be keeping that in. Wouldn't you say?

Jim: I would agree with that. Is tar paper insulation? Is it actually insulation? Is tar paper just a windbreak-

Anne: Windbreak.

Jim: -and a heat absorber?

Anne: Yes, I agree with those two statements.

Jim: I've never had these thoughts before. I'm sorry, listeners. I'm having these thoughts right now in front of people because I always saw tar paper as an insulation, and I bet you it's not. I don't know anybody who's used tar paper as a wrap, Anne, in 30 years, do you know anybody?

Anne: No, it's just so old-fashioned. We're doing a history lesson here to say where we're going.

Jim: What are some of the current wraps that you know about from either your company or others talking to beekeepers? What's some of the popular wraps that you've seen now?

Anne: It always parallels what humans are using for insulation on their houses nowadays. I've seen people make a homemade wrap with one-inch or two-inch thick rigid foam and they just cut pieces and stand them around the hive and then put a strap around it. That's a cheap way to go and then you again would have to take it off and store it somewhere during the warm period so you could actually look at your hive and separate boxes in the spring and summer. The other things are wraps that are sold, and they're always black. They're trying to combine that idea of heat absorption with what's under that black material, and what's under it is insulation. After the fluctuating temperatures of night and day have settled down, it's time to take the wrap off.

Jim: The thing that I'm puzzled about at times is, is there a season for wrapping in your experience that you put it on, where you put on the wrap in November with religious fervor or what? What is the scheduling for wrapping?

Anne: Well, I'm fervently positive about having the wrap on at the end of winter and through the early spring, when the temperatures are the coldest and then they're changing to fluctuating because that's stressful on the bees, that fluctuating up and down. I might put them on around Halloween but if I missed all of October, I would still try and put them on in November or December, they have some benefit and no downside. The other thing people do sometimes is get those polystyrene hives, and they're clearly never changing the insulation on those hives. It's the same way year-round. We can't do that with wraps, because we can't get into the hive easily when it's wrapped.

Jim: That's a good point. You need to be finished with that hive until springtime if you've got it wrapped. Anne, we've lost some listeners now because there's people in warm climates who barely know what we're even talking about. Could I take just a few minutes to say that in my experience in South Alabama and North Florida, if anything, you would wrap in the summer to help the hive stay cooler, to help them control it. I'm kidding, listeners, I'm kidding. Why in the world would you wrap a beehive when the low temperature is going to be something like 45, 46 degrees? No, there's no wrapping necessity there.

This is something that regional beekeepers in the south can really, pretty much blow off. Now, having said that, it does get blazing hot in the areas that I'm talking about. Sometimes all the bees are out front, and then we're totally off the subject. Possibly, insulation would be helpful, help me here as I make this up, Anne. Would that be helpful to help the bees keep it cooler as they bring back water and evaporate it and do those kind of things to cool the hive down?

Anne: Making like a parallel to human houses, when you have a well-insulated house, the attic, the walls, you're not ever taking that insulation out. Do people in the south benefit from insulation in their houses all year round? Does it ever get hot in their house and hard to cool it down because it's trapping the heat inside? I don't know.

Jim: Well, certainly, the houses are insulated permanently, and with the cost of running an air conditioner and it being hot outside and 25 or 30 degrees cooler inside, I guess, not that much difference, but I'm sure they would insulate.

Anne: Could it be in a house that doesn't have air conditioning for some reason that that house became very hot inside and then it was hotter than outside because it was insulated?

Jim: How did we get on this subject about insulating houses? I don't know that I can answer that. Yes, I know that old houses would hold heat and you'd go sit on the front porch just to find some air stirring. Would be one of the ways that my grandparents would have said it. You get out of the hot house and you could turn a fan on, and that just cooked you more evenly. The whole point that I wanted to get to here was that this issue of helping bees through the winter, in this country, winter is a relative thing, it's not the same.

You mentioned snow covering the bottom entrances. Well, the only thing I'd ever have a problem with in Alabama when I kept bees there was dead bees covering the bottom entrance. That'd still be a use for top entrances, never mind the potential discussion about humidity concerns up and down. Some of this packing thing is just not critical for some beekeepers unless you really want to get out there and explore far beyond what we've ever done. I don't know anyone in the southern states who's ever experimented with insulated hives in the summer, so that's a moot point right now. It's just strictly a cold climate thing from where I am here in Northeast Ohio and where you are in New York that these things are important to us.

Anne: Yes, I agree. Those southern listeners should just look at all the other honey bee obscures and not listen to this one.

Jim: Don't say that, they can enjoy seeing our grief and our anxiety and knowing they can sell us packaged bees next spring to replace these bees. There is that. As we wind down here, you seem to be a proponent of packing, do you find it to be labor and time-intensive? Do you find it to be significantly extra money? Can you tell from colonies that are packed or not packed a big difference? Would you say pack or no pack as we wind down?

Anne: The simple answer to that would be, I would say, wrap them because it's more like the R-value that a tree has, and that's what bees are evolved to live in, that thick tree trunk. It is a time-consuming thing to put them on and finish it off. The cost, it's about $35 or $40 per wrap, it's costly, then you got to store that thing. I would just encourage people to understand insulation and think about the natural world and don't take their bees for granted.

Jim: I really can't add anything to that. Truth, listeners, sometimes I pack or I wrap, when I say pack, I mean wrap, and when she says wrap, sometimes she may say pack too.

Anne: Well, Jim, we focused a lot on wrapping and warmth but I want to point out that this is not the most important thing or the thing a person can do to make their bees live through the winter, they'll live without wrapping but they won't live if they're infested with varroa mites. Controlling mites all year is the number one thing you can do to get your bees through winter.

Jim: There you go, it's always mites. We talk about packing and it's always mites. I completely agree, because you don't control mites, you can pack whatever you want and it's not going to matter all that much. Anne as usual, I enjoyed talking with you, our time is already spent. Listeners, we did the best we could, I hope that the conversation will spawn some thought and consideration from you. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye.

Anne: See you later everyone.

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