Hive Insulation and Overwintering with Etienne Tardiff (293)

293 - Hive Insulation and Overwintering with Etienne Tardiff

Jason Liller: Hello, this is Jason Liller from Oldtown, Maryland. I'm a new beekeeper this year with three colonies and learning more every day. Thanks to resources like this. Welcome to the Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Jeff Ott: Welcome to the Beekeeping Today Podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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Jeff: Hey, a quick shout-out to all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on the website. There, you can read up on all of our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for Download, and listen to over 250 past episodes. Read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each episode, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors. You can find it all at www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com. Hey, thanks a lot, Jason Liller of Western Maryland for that great opening. Becky, Jason was one of our lucky pint winners, pint-glass winners.

Becky: Pints would have been cool too, but I love that he won the glass. I love that he's a new beekeeper and that he's listening to the podcast. That's fantastic.

Jeff: I hope you're enjoying a nice cold drink of your choice in that Beekeeper Today Podcast pint glass. I enjoy it myself.

Becky: Now, everybody's like, "Wait, what's up with the pint glass?" Not everybody. Everybody, you got to listen to the end of the episode because Jeff is very generous sometimes. Sometimes.

Jeff: [chuckles] Sometimes. Just to make things even more interesting, I think you never know where they'll end up in the middle of a podcast or maybe an archive special or we'll just pepper them throughout.

Becky: I like to think that there's great information from beginning to end. If this helps people listen, okay.

[laughter]

Jeff: Well, as long as we're not giving away tote bags. Becky, it's end of August. My gosh, I can't believe the end of summer has come around so fast. What have you been doing with your bees? Throughout the year, we've been saying at the end of the summer, midsummer to end-summer, you start getting ready for those winter bees. I know you've had a fantastic season there in Minnesota. You've bragged on 700 pounds of honey plus.

Becky: That was just in a week, Jeff. Come on. The total is going to be amazing. Our grand total is my grand total. "Our," I really do include the bees in this operation.

Jeff: [laughs]

Becky: When your bees make honey all year, there also means there are lots of bees in there. They're making new bees and they're also making mites. Mite management is so important this time of year. Hopefully, people started a little earlier than now. Also, it's the time when the weather starts changing. You have to make sure that bees have enough food and you have to make sure that other bees don't try to rob that food. Everybody who started beekeeping in the spring and, now, they see that they've got to step it up. It's a next-level. The colony's bigger. There's a lot more to look at.

Jeff: Yes. The end of August, yellowjackets are horrible. This time of year, I'm putting in entrance reducers to help the bees manage the yellowjackets and hornets. Some of those bald-faced hornets and the big yellow European hornets can really wreak havoc on a colony, especially a weak colony, not to mention the robbing that can go on. I have more problems with yellowjackets and hornets than I do with robbing so far. [chuckles]

Becky: So far.

Jeff: Yes. What you mentioned about making sure that if you're starting in August, you really have to get on the ball. You're going to be playing catch-up throughout the fall and throughout the winter. Last year, I didn't get started until the end of August. My poor colony has paid the price for it during the winter. You got to get on top of it.

Becky: It's a different way of thinking. Instead of getting in there and intervening when the mites reach a certain level, it's keeping them from getting to that level. The threshold is just such a delicate number at this point that some people have said wisely, "We don't have the tools to measure mites at the level that we need to in order to make sure that we keep the bees safe from those viruses they're vectoring. Just can't talk enough about mites, unfortunately.

[laughter]

Jeff: Oh yes, I know I get tired of talking about them, but they're so critical. Understanding them and managing them are so important to a successful beekeeping these days that it's an evil necessity, I'm afraid.

Becky: When you get to this time of year, it's a dance. We have to have healthy bees. They have to have enough food to get them through the winter. In some parts of the country, they have to be protected from winter in order to increase their successes of making it through the season. Hopefully, you've got a really good queen and strong population in there. Because as each day passes, it's more and more difficult to change those things.

Jeff: Yes, it is. What a great segue. Today's guest, Etienne Tardiff, is from-- I think it's white night in the Yukon. He'll correct me, but he's from way up north in Canada. He's going to talk to us today about wintering and insulation and even maybe touch on the topic of the condensing hives. He'll have some examples from very far north. It'll be really interesting.

Becky: Oh, and the technology he uses. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Jeff: When you mix an engineer and a beekeeper and you put them together for a long, dark winter, it comes out with some fantastic studies. I'm looking forward to talking to Etienne.

Becky: Exactly.

Jeff: Hey, Becky, before we invite Etienne into the studio, we've received a new audio postcard from Dr. Dewey Caron in his monthly series on communication. Let's hear from Dewey and then we'll hear from Etienne.

Dr. Dewey Caron: Hello, this is Dr. Dewey Caron.

[music]

Dr. Caron: I'm talking to you from Portland, Oregon.

[music]

Dr. Caron: Welcome back. Another of the postcards on communication for Beekeeping Today Podcast. We're emphasizing communication because, as beekeepers, that's what we're doing in our bee colonies. We're trying to figure out what our bees are saying. In our management, we're trying to tell them something that we would like to have them do. We're trying to communicate.

I'm organizing the communication on three different aspects. Initially, bee scientists to beekeepers, then secondly, the beekeeper to the bees, and finally and what's important for them, bee to bee. Let's get started. Today, for the communication of bee scientists to beekeeper, I'd like to introduce a topic that I did cover earlier on Beekeeping Today Podcast, and that was a new release of BeeMD.

BeeMD is patterned after the WebMD, which an individual can go and find out aspects of bee health. BeeMD is that counterpart where if you see something, something that you wonder if this is normal or this is strange, is something going on, BeeMD is a resource that you can access to try to find those answers. Is this normal? Is this something I should be concerned about? Can I help ID this?

BeeMD was initially developed through a task force with the pollination partnership of the NAPPC group. We have since moved it to a new special server that has a lot of bells and whistles that can go with it. This is with the US Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. We call that APHIS. It's in their Identification Technology Program or ITP program.

It is basically set up so that you can ask it questions by explaining where you are in a beehive, what you might be seeing. In a series of a short number of questions, you will then be able to perhaps then hopefully find out what it is that you're looking at, and then have the information that you need to explore it further. BeeMD, it's a way for us to help you, the beekeeper, try to find out what's going on. Is this normal? Is this something that needs some attention by me? Can I do something about it? Communication.

The second aspect of communication that I indicate we're going to talk about is that of beekeeper to bee. When we go in our colonies, we find during the spring as the colony is developing that they are raising drones. They'll raise drones almost anywhere they can. Certainly, between the boxes if there's extra space, but at the bottom of frames where they can fit in the larger drone-sized cells. If we've had some damage to cells on the comb or in their drawing of cells on comb, they go not following the template of foundation but put in the larger drone-sized cells.

The information that we have come to learn that as the bee develops in the spring, they also want to have some drones in their colony. The queen will seek out those cells that are the larger-sized cells and lay the unfertilized eggs, then develop into drones. Once we reach the summer solstice, that behavior in many colonies stops. There are still drones because they are still raising drones from earlier. It takes 24 days for the egg to go through its development to produce a brand-new adult drone.

The queen really does not any longer go and search for those larger-sized cells. Colonies then reduce the amount of the drones that they're raising. We can increase drone-raising by feeding colonies, by helping ensure that the colonies are healthy, by making sure there is adequate pollen supplies, all things that we can actually help the colony continue to raise drones. Why would we want to do that? Well, as we know now, the mites do much better reproduction-wise in drone brood.

When they are raising drones, we then have a method of working to help reduce the mite buildup from their low point early in the season so that they don't reach as high a population. That can then affect very positively, their issues in terms of mites causing damage, causing loss of colonies by enhancing the virus replication. Our communication. We want to continue to use our drone-brood removal as a way of reducing mite buildup. If we want to try to continue that past the summer solstice, we have to help ensure that our colonies are a bit healthier.

Finally, communication. Bee communication to bee communication. One of the previous discussions that I had was about how antennae are so important for bees picking up bees that are dancing. Dance language is a marvelous example of bee communication. We have come to understand that there are two dances that bees perform. Sometimes even a third and intermediate dance, but basically, a round dance as described initially by Dr. Von Frisch, and also a waggle dance.

Some have come to question as to whether really there is only one dance that is very effective in bees finding and exploiting the best resources, that being the waggle dance. The round dance, more of an information that something is out there and go out and find it and that the bees then go and search in all directions. As the round dance then transitions to, in some cases, an intermediate dance, that's not as common in our bees here in North America. Then also to the waggle dance, the ability to find a source improves.

They have much better success because they have been told much more specifically about the information of where to go. I would like to indicate that some new research that is explained by Dr. Tom Seeley, looking at the two dances, the round and the waggle dance, in his book, Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners. This is in his newest book. This is in a chapter that he talks about in terms of Chapter 16, two recruit dances or just one.

He has looked at this and looked at where recruits go following a round dance and following a waggle dance and indeed confirms that the waggle dance is very specific, very specific information of what direction to go when they leave the colony and how far to fly. The round dance is simply a type of an alerting. There's some food out there. Samples are given out. A bee smells from many flowers that it's visiting.

There's additional information, but there is not the specific information in terms of how far to fly or in terms of what direction to fly when the bee leaves the hive. All of these will have resources that are supplied, supplementary, so that you can go and find some more information. Communication, another in our postcards of communication in bees. Thank you for listening.

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Jeff: While you're at the Strong Microbials site, make sure you click on and subscribe to The Hive, the regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping facts and product updates. Hey, everybody, welcome back. Sitting across this virtual Beekeeping Today Podcast table and it's been stretched way north into Canada, we have Etienne Tardiff. Etienne, welcome to the show.

Etienne Tardiff: My pleasure. Always happy to be here.

Becky: We're so glad you joined us. You're talking about something that everybody's going to be on the edge of their beekeeping seats wanting to learn more, so we're excited to have this conversation.

Jeff: Yes, it's good to see you. Last time I saw you was in Louisville, I believe, at the North American Honey Bee Expo. For our listeners who don't know you and haven't listened to an earlier show, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started and interested in bees and beekeeping?

Etienne: Yes, my name's Etienne. I actually live up in the Yukon on the Canadian side, I guess, near Alaska, across the border. I've been up here just about 12 years now, I believe, and I guess bees. I'm actually an engineer who loves bees, so I got started at one of my jobs. We convinced the environment department to buy us some hives so we could do a reclamation project and invested in Beekeeping for Dummies as our first book because I tend to keep bees where there's not many beekeepers. A lot of it is self-taught and just learn as you go.

Then over, I'd say, my time, I've always taken a very scientific approach to beekeeping. As I grew into it, I always have questions, "Why this? Why that?" A lot of times, I can't find the answers, so I have to hypothesize and make up my own answers and collect data. I've been trialing and testing and comparing and collecting data for the last 10 years via observations, sensors, collecting info from other folks, asking a lot of questions. I guess that's my joy of beekeeping is just understanding why. As you know, it's a really deep hole with no bottom. As you start digging, you just keep digging, trying to find the answer.

Becky: Etienne, have you always kept bees in the Yukon only or have you managed colonies someplace else?

Etienne: I did keep bees in Northwestern Ontario, which is north of Minnesota, about, I'd say, three hours, four hours north of the border of Minnesota and Ontario. I'd say it's slightly higher than Winnipeg, Manitoba, just on the Ontario border there. Again, a small town and no other beekeepers.

Becky: Cold is part of what you understand when it comes to keeping bees.

Etienne: Yes, so winters are cold there, but the summers are actually quite warm. They get muggy, warm summers. Versus in the Yukon, it's fairly mild. Some of my summers might be other people's winters.

[laughter]

Etienne: We had frost. We had -1 Celsius a couple of days ago. It frosted our zucchinis outside. Literally, we expect frost pretty much any time.

Jeff: Instead of muggy, you have buggy.

Etienne: Yes, exactly.

Jeff: It's a different world of beekeeping, but the basics are the same, I would think.

Etienne: They are. I guess, as a new beekeeper, you don't really understand the population dynamics, the number of bees. The bees will focus on their nest first, trying to keep that warm. As they grow, then they start having surplus resources to go do some foraging and all those learning curves. I guess the challenge or the questions I've had was always, again, being a mechanical engineer, understanding the whole heat dynamics in the colonies, summer or winter.

Because, for example, like I said, a couple of days ago, we had negative temperatures here. Then we had a day high of 25 Celsius, which is in the 70s. You can see that the bees are always stressed up here. There's always something that affects them. I guess if we deep dive into those topics is understanding, I guess, your weather. Your temperature is probably one of the key things when you're starting to plan, I guess, your summer strategies, your spring strategies, your winter strategies, and your fall strategies is understanding things.

I guess being where I'm at, I'm always thinking. For example, last week, I moved some honey boxes, my brood boxes to the bottom because they were all filled with some native honey, some natural honey. I moved them down because bees like to fill up. By me doing that now, I've got emptier frames on top. Then the bees will naturally start filling that up. I actually started that in July, knowing that only if I wait till September, it's too late.

There's things I need to do now in mindsight or in hindsight. There's things that I didn't do before. Now, I've learned little tricks just to say, "Oh, that heavy honey frame, let's just move it to the bottom now." You could do that anywhere. It's more critical here because my season's shorter. I can make maybe one mistake a season, or else then the bees suffer for the rest of the beekeeping season and into winter if they're not really well-prepared.

Jeff: Well, let's talk about equipment real quick because the first question came to me when you talked about moving the honey super below, are you using all standard equipment, all the same size like all medium boxes or all deeps? How are you managing your equipment? At Langstroth, I suppose.

Etienne: I use everything standard, so deeps, except for my honey boxes. My honey boxes are mediums because the honey flows aren't that huge here. For example, this year is a weird season. It's actually quite good in my home yard, but it's all deeps. When I move and I don't extract any honey from deeps, any honey that's collected in my deep boxes, brood boxes stay with the bees. Unless if I notice some really dark honey, I'll pull it out because I've had experience with dark honey and it not being good for wintering.

Then material-wise, all my boxes are polystyrene. The reason for that is the temperature fluctuations like a typical summer fluctuation, morning cold to, say, a 4:00 PM high is a good 20 degrees Celsius. That's summer. Then in the winter, the difference is sometimes 40, 60 degrees from, say, -20 outside. The bees are trying to maintain a 20, 25 Celsius inside the box. Then when we get really, really cold like a -40, so then that's where we get a-- I think the biggest measured difference was around 70 degrees, 75 degrees between inside and outside.

If I don't use my polys, one is I won't get much honey in the summer because the bees will use all their energy to stay warm. There's a couple of other beekeepers here who use wooden colonies who just leave them insulated now year-round. Why? Because they found 20%, 30% more honey just by keeping the insulation on and because the bees are more able to maintain that inside temperature.

Again, hence the reason I've taken a lot of knowledge from down south and then filtered it to our context, which we didn't really have, just to get an understanding of what's going on. Then I'd say in the last six to eight years, this is where I actually started collecting a lot of data, grids of temperature data, humidity data. Then this past winter, some CO2 data in the colonies just to give me another dimension on what's going on in there.

Jeff: Now, anyone who's read any of your articles know that you really-- I don't want to say trick out, but you really do monitor your colonies. You have more than maybe one sensor in your colony when you're talking about you're collecting CO2 levels or you know the temperature dynamics within a colony. You often have multiple sensors in a colony, in your test colonies.

Etienne: Exactly. I'll typically have one sensor in my overwintering colonies. That's just to tell me, is the queen laying? Is she not laying? When I put on that pollen patty, when there's still two feet of snow on that colony, I want to see, is that queen still there? Is she viable? Because a month to two later, I'll do my first inspection. It gives me some insight because I'll actually see a brood pattern. That's the one-sensor approach.

In summer, it could just give me an idea of when the queen will start ramping down late summer and the impact of, again, adding a pollen patty just so they get a bit of extra nutrition so she keeps laying a bit longer. Because before I did pollen patties, she would slow down by the end of July to early August. Then by September, she stopped. Those are my winter bees. Then they wouldn't ramp up till sometime in April, mid to late April. They were really old and the clusters were small.

By adding these patties now, what it does is I don't add too much because I don't want the nest to be massive. Usually, just a one-pound patty. I'll just make sure they always have a one-pound until maybe the first week of September. Then at that point, I stop. Then you can see the temperature drop. Then that tells me the queen is actually slowing down. Then I know that that's when the winter bees will get generated because folks need to understand that some places, they keep feeding these pollen patties.

I was like, "Well, you won't have winter bees because a nurse bee cannot become a winter bee." The only way a bee becomes a winter bee is if she is basically on hold. She can't forage. She's just there. She hatches. She becomes a cleaning bee and then just a cluster bee. Once she starts raising brood, she's now a nurse bee. She's not storing those fat layers. The key for winter bees is, at some point, you need to make a call.

This is where I tell folks, I said, "If up here, I can stop in September. Down south, chances are you can stop." You don't need to go hog-wild and go crazy with pollen patties. My strategy is that. That was just to describe how I use, say, the one sensor. That's just a temperature sensor, a $30-something sensor. Then for the heavier heating-type temperature monitoring, I've had up to probably nine sensors just on one plane, then double plane below the cluster, above the cluster. I've had 20, 30 sensors in one colony.

Jeff: That's the graph I saw.

Etienne: Exactly. Then I create a heat map upwards, downwards. Then I start understanding the temperature dynamics above the cluster, below the cluster. Then that's where I started cluing in on convection currents, the impact of that temperature difference with outside. For example, this last season, adding the CO2 helps me understand the venting now in winter when they're really clustered versus loose-clustered.

Then it actually matches up with my -15 C. Outside is where my bees, in my setup with no top vent, actually start clustering. Above that, they're fairly loose and my temperature profile did show that they were fairly loose. Anything below -15, they start clustering tighter. Then the CO2 levels were flat, pretty much maxed out on the sensor. Then the occasional temperature spike because, again, I have temperature sensors above and below.

These temperature spikes just to create, I guess, convection or some type of fanning. I don't have an audio sensor in there to record sounds when they activate, but temperature spikes is energy. Typically, in a beehive, energy is bees moving around, making noise. There's a couple of occasions where my setup, I've noticed, for example, entrance size. That is important. If you're not top-vented, you want a bigger lower entrance.

When I say "big," like if it's not really cold, you can have pretty much the whole thing, especially if you're insulated. You do need a mouse guard because I did have a dead mouse in my one colony this year. Luckily, it didn't do any much, didn't do much damage. Sometimes I've had them go in and chew up the bottom frames. I overwinter with singles mostly. Occasionally, I'll do doubles. This year, this past season, I had one with a medium.

Becky: Just a medium or--

Etienne: Oh, a single and a medium.

Becky: A single and a medium. Okay, so a deep and a medium.

Etienne: Exactly.

Becky: I was going to say just a medium, I started leaning into that one. [laughs]

Etienne: I guess that was more because of being busy. I think we were hiking, doing something late season. I'd left a medium there. I don't use an excluder. I left my excluder on too late or didn't put it on soon enough. There was brood in there. By early September, there was still brood. I was like, "Okay, I've got to make a call now." I just left it on, took the excluder out, fed, and they basically filled it with sugar syrup. This year, I ran it with that medium on it the whole time. I was like, "That's actually pretty good."

Becky: Yes. I like that configuration.

Jeff: Hey, let's take this quick break to hear from our sponsors and we'll be right back and continue this conversation. This was really good.

[music]

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Becky: Welcome back, everybody. Etienne, you mentioned that you run a single deep colony and you have medium supers with no queen excluder. Two questions. One, what kind of bee are you using? What kind of subspecies are you using? Then two, if you're not using a queen excluder, are you pulling out frames of honey constantly in order to prevent the queen from going up there? How are you stopping that?

Etienne: I'll explain it from the beginning. In spring, literally, because I do add those early pollen patties, so I get an extra round or two of brood rearing. Come May, it's a really strong colony. I have to do something to mitigate swarming, even though my first pollen is first of May. I have to do something. What I do is I add my honey box on and I leave it on for maybe two, three weeks without an excluder. Then the queen goes up. She lays out a pattern. It's nice fresh wax.

Then what I do is I'd say late May, early June, I'll go in there. I'll chase the queen down. To the bottom box, I'll put my excluder. What that does is, now, I've got all these nurse bees on top. I've mitigated the swarm. It'll hatch out within 21 days, which aligns with my nectar flow at the end of June. Mid to late June is the beginning of the flow and it goes till the end of July. There's plenty of time for them to backfill that up. If you forget to put an excluder, then you've got a box full of brood. That's what happens with this one colony.

Becky: Are you using Carniolans or are you using darker bees?

Etienne: Usually, yes, darker Carnie-style. Sometimes Saskatraz and local mutts or BC mutts, which is they usually have a lot of Carnie in them. I did have Italians here by accident once.

Becky: [laughs]

Etienne: They said it was a Carnie, but the bees were all golden. It was a massive cluster.

Becky: It didn't work, did it?

Etienne: It didn't survive the winter. In general, Carnies and dark bees.

Becky: Yes. Italians need three deeps where I'm from to winter them because they eat a lot. That's interesting. How many colonies are you running and has beekeeping increased in your area since you've started? Are people that you know starting to keep bees?

Etienne: Just to start with the first question, because in Yukon, the boreal forest is very forage-limited. I typically keep three to four colonies per yard and I have three yards. It allows me to do my splits and my artificial swarms in a quarantine yard. I usually have anywhere from, say, eight to 12 colonies split between three yards. In there, I'll do resource colonies where I retire my old queens in a nuc box because a queen here shipped is $75 to $100.

I can't afford to just buy queens. It's my backup. It's my insurance too. Then on the growth of beekeeping in the Yukon, it's actually grown quite a bit. We've got a person here who runs, I guess, a shop. She's a beekeeper and she's got an assortment of things now in her shop. She also brings in the nucs for the season. I think this year, close to 100 nucs came up. Just to put things in perspective, there's only 40,000 people in the Yukon. There's more moose than people up here.

[laughter]

Etienne: Originally, I thought we had maybe 50 colonies up here. I think, now, we're probably in the 200 to 300 colonies. We do have one, I guess, commercial beekeeper. Basically, he, I won't say, chases the forest fires. The fireweed honey. He places colonies on two-year burns plus. He's had up to 50 colonies. I'd say that's our biggest beekeeper because the challenge here, like I mentioned before, is forage. If I'm happy with getting 100 pounds of honey per yard, typically, I'll get 25 to 50 because I do bees for the mental stimulation more than the honey. I do love the honey. 50 pounds of honey, 70 pounds of honey keeps me happy and makes really good presence.

Jeff: Before the break, you're talking about the sensors set at different levels. You're able to get, basically, a visualization of the temperature gradients and even the CO2 levels within a colony. There are so many avenues to go down with that tool available. I know there's a lot of conversation. Becky and I have talked about it with the guests on the use and popularity of condensating hives and closed hives versus traditional Langstroth hives and everything. From your observations and from your studies from your bees there in the Yukon, can you share what you've determined or been able to see?

Etienne: Like we said, it's a big hole and I keep digging.

[laughter]

Etienne: Adding the CO2 dimension reinforced a couple of points. I do need to get a sensor with a higher upper limit. Just from what I've seen, what I've calculated, what the probable levels are, there's three important aspects to honey or to CO2. It's called an ultra-low metabolic rate. When bees maintain, they've tested bees in enclosures where they control the atmosphere, and then they bring the CO2. They let the CO2 rise up above four or 5% atmospheric.

Then what happens is the bees actually slow down their metabolism. Because when I did my energy balances with all these calculations, the R values, all that type of stuff, you see that the bees-- there's a lot of studies that say the bees generate this much energy at this exposure temperature. If I run the numbers, they're generating more heat than what the temperature inside is.

People say, "Oh, bees don't heat the inside." They don't do it on purpose. If you take 10 people, sit them in a room that's 10 by 10 feet, eventually that room's going to get hot just from our body heat. If we get everybody to do aerobics, it's going to get hot really quick, but if we get everybody to meditate and breathe slowly and not get agitated, the room's not going to heat up as quick. Those types of things happen in our beehives. Because I've noticed my bees aren't more active. At -40, they're actually super quiet. The temperatures inside, yes, the outside temperatures do cool down, but never really below zero. The average temperature in there is still 10, with a high around 20 Celsius.

What I've seen is it's the amount of energy they're using, say at -40 here, is still less energy than, say a wooden colony down south, where it's a 5 degrees Celsius outside. It's not even close. What's happening is the CO2, because it's maintained at a high level and there is a threshold, what it does is it puts the bees in a torpor and it actually slows down their metabolic rate, even lower than what we think they can do. There's a couple of studies that hasn't been really researched much, but just from an energy perspective, the colony should be a lot hotter than it is based on the exposure temperature. That's one of the clues.

The other interesting one is do OAV early in the season. Probably first inspection just before or after. There's still snow on the ground. I'll go and I just bought one of those InstaVapes now, so it's really fast.

Becky: I'm just going to interrupt really quickly, oxalic acid vaporization, just for everybody to be on the OAV.

Etienne: No, that's good. I usually treat once or twice, probably twice, just to make sure there's no hidden mites under cappings early in spring, and then I'll do it in the fall. That's about all the treatment that I do. I will do the occasional treatment because all my colonies have screen bottom boards. Then I'll do mite counts based post-treatment just to see what the levels are. I just don't seem to have much of a mite problem. I did experiment with not treating my colonies and it takes about three years for them to get to a level where that colony collapses and it dies and it gets PMS and all that.

I know doing nothing is not an option, but I know if I treat early and I do those two sets of treatments in a year, it's really good. Especially now that I'm doing this ultra-tight setup with just a bottom entrance, maybe a half-open screen bottom board that's protected in winter. The studies do say that this is where I need that higher threshold CO2 sensor is to confirm that my levels are above the 6% at some point in the winter. It's been measured. There's a few studies now where for the indoor wintering, they're starting to look at what's the impact of high CO2 doses on viral levels.

It's anecdotal, it's observational, but I think understanding what other people have done and some of the studies, what they're pointing at is it makes sense. There's that aspect, the metabolic rate, and then I'd say the one risk in a condensing hive that I found is rapid temperature changes. This is where your colony might just start puking out bees.

Jeff: External temperatures?

Etienne: External, exactly. Because the bees, remember, even though they're at an ultra-low metabolic rate, if the exposure temperature warms up really quick-- it takes time for us to slow our metabolic rate down to even a lower level. They're generating extra heat and the colony could overheat. Because if you remember, in a non-vented colony, the driver of ventilation is temperature difference. The temperature inside versus outside will create some natural convection. Again, that's why most winter colonies are really quiet, especially if you don't have a top vent, is because it's just that temperature difference, the cold walls, the warm air going up and then hitting a cold wall and then dropping down.

When I've done my temperature grids with my heat maps, the bees tend to keep one of the side walls open. Where they'll cluster and keep one vent area, I just called it a vent channel. Then I had my IR camera, my infrared camera through my entrance, looking upwards, taking pictures and videos and just scrolling across from side to side to see what the cluster looked like from underneath. Then you could see, oh, there's a cluster, cluster, cluster, cluster, no cluster, open vent. Because I wanted to make sure that what my sensors are telling me is what the IR. I confirmed that they both read the same thing. I was like, "Vent channel." Then you take temperatures and you can see that there's some cooling.

I guess it's a hypothesis that that's that rotating natural convection current.

Becky: I think we have to back up, because I think we've been talking about condensing hives, but I don't think we've told the listener what that means, right?

Etienne: I will.

Becky: Will you do that? I'm really excited to hear your explanation.

[laughter]

Etienne: I love it. No, that's great. I get excited by talking bees. A condensing hive is an insulated colony, hive body with no top ventilation. Typically what happens is bees generate heat, even in their resting state, and that heat rises in that colony. Then eventually it hits your top cover. A good condensing hive will have more insulation on top than on the sides. The reason for that is you don't want condensation above your bees, you want it on the side. The more insulation you have on top-- just to give you perspective, I have R 40 on top of my bees.

What that does is it means that the heat will halo or create a heat bubble below the cluster. The heat will envelop that cluster and the temperature-- this is where we call the dew point. The dew point is where the air moisture condenses out of the air. One thing to remember is warm air can hold more moisture. The dew points in a condensing hive is below the cluster. You'll get condensation on your sidewalls below the cluster, and usually it weeps out. It condenses and flows out. The reason I use my open-screen bottom board is so that excess condensation drops below the colony inside this empty cavity.

Some people who use solid bottom boards will-- it's not that cold, it'll just flow out of the front entrance. They might tilt it forward a bit so that it all flows out. In really cold places, that condensation freezes and creates ice blocks. What I do is, that's why I use my open-screen bottom board, is I want it to flow out and not plug up my front entrance. A condensing hive is where we know it will condense, the water will condense, but we're designing it so it condenses where we want it to condense. Typically on the front wall, I'll put less insulation, so it'll condense on the front wall below the cluster, and then just flow out.

Becky: If you're putting R 40 above the cluster, are you putting R 20, or what are you putting on the sidewalls and then versus the front wall?

Etienne: Typically a poly colony is R 7, R 8. I hug them together, so I'll put say two colonies together, so they share a wall. On the front, it'll just be bubble foil wrap, so it might be R 10 total. Then typically up here, I can't point any colonies to the north because it's just too cold and there's no sun. I'll put an extra 2 inches of styrofoam on the back wall as a windblock. Literally it's hives hugged together with a bubble foil-wrapped envelope so they can share air and create a dead air space. Then basically a 2-inch piece of styrofoam/piece of plywood on the north side.

Becky: Is there a dead air space on your hive stand? We use two by fours. What do you use for hive stands?

Etienne: I built a deck, so I had some 2 by 8s, the ACQ, so the treated lumber, and I built myself a nice stand with an empty cavity below. Then with the snow, it all gets covered, but there's an empty cavity below the colonies where the wind can actually blow in there. Basically it's just a dead air space, but it provides drainage.

Becky: Because you have your screen bottom board on top of that?

Etienne: Exactly. I guess the second part, or that other where I was going around-- I think it was around condensation and moisture and holding. In a condensing hive, the inside temperature is warmer. Again, I've got five years of data now showing that the inside temperature versus outside temperature is very different, which one is connected to convective currents and some type of natural airflow, but also it has more capacity to hold moisture. If you ask the question, where does all that moisture come from? It actually comes from honey consumption.

Cold air, even say down in the Pacific Northwest, say you get a cold 0 degrees, -5 degress day, and it's basically snowing, wet snow, and the air is close to 100%. That air, for us, is very moist, but compared to inside, you'll take that 100% air, the bees will suck it in because they need air. Say it's 10, 15 degrees in there, the relative humidity will drop to the 50%, 60%, so the effective moisture is actually much lower. Because the air inside can hold more, so it'll drop the RH. That's what people don't realize a lot of times is this condensing hive where you're letting the bees manage their inside environment. That's what it is.

Because if you put a top vent and the bees can't propolize it or you've shimmed it and you've got all these things on top, the bees have zero control over that inside environment, versus the condensing hive says, we'll make sure there's a big entrance, we'll manage the moisture, but we'll let the bees figure out the temperature. That's the principle. The one thing I noticed this winter with the CO2 is the temperature went from -40 degrees to like 0 degrees in 12 hours. The bees, metabolically, were trying to just stay stable at -40. Within 12 hours, things have warmed up so much.

One is now your natural ventilation drops. Then this is where you get a risk of too much CO2 and a spike in humidity now. What happened is the bees just instantly activated. A bunch of them got spit out. Then it's still like 0 degrees, -5 degrees out there, so a bunch of them died. I've observed it in the past and the solution was for me to remove my entrance reducer and then the bees quickly recovered and then they went back inside. That told me that, okay, if my entrance is too small on certain colonies, so now basically I'm going to increase the size on my bottom entrance there because it does happen where we'll go from -40 degrees to 0 degrees in less than 24 hours.

Sometimes I see bunches of dead bees in front of a colony and that tells me, "Okay, that's what happened." I had sensor data, CO2 data, and my CO2 data is like five-minute data or two-minute data. I could see them, one heating up, but also the CO2 dropping really quick. Then I visually see it in the past too, what happens. I was like, "Okay, that's what's happening." I was able to see the CO2, the temperature, and then the bees all at the same time. You can see it's like a panic because they're suffocating.

Becky: You reported that someplace. I'm trying to remember where I saw it, but where did you report that information so that people could read about it? Do you remember?

Etienne: I guess it's an article that may be coming out on ABJ soon. I did send you a draft of that article just so you could get a bit of background.

Becky: Oh. Okay. That's where I saw it. [chuckles] I thought I saw it like on YouTube or something like that.

Etienne: I may have mentioned it on one of my videos.

Jeff: At this point, we'll mention that we'll have links for your places where you publish any of this information and where you relate your stories and your observations. We'll put those all in the show notes so our listeners can go out and see this for themselves. It's really-- If you like data, if you like technology in the beehive, you'll geek out on this. It's fun.

Becky: Dead bees accumulating in the bottom board. Do you have a problem with them blocking the entrance?

Etienne: No. There's-- I guess the other piece of data that I have is I have a microscope and I've been sampling my bees, my live and dead bees since 2017 to understand their gut health. Because I've noticed mortality events where a bunch of bees die and there's a combination and sometimes it's nosema and this other pests, amoeba disease. Then sometimes all the bees are clean, but there's a bunch of dead bees. That's where it's a temperature one, I'm believing, a CO2 issue. It does coincide with these temperature differences inside outside where rapid warming event.

I guess-- It's way more than natural because people say, "Oh, don't worry about it," but I'm like, "I've been keeping bees long enough to understand what natural mortality rates are versus a bunch of dead bees in the snow versus a thousand dead bees in the snow in a one-evening event or one-morning event." You recognize those types of events. It's where I guess I have an advantage that my bees die in front of my colonies. Because the other thing I do, I try to minimize the impact of the sun until March because I want my bees clustered and not affected by overheating from the outside. I'm trying to keep them in a fridge.

The other advantage of this open-screen bottom board is it's still -10 down there. What it is, it creates a chilling effect and keeps the bees in their cluster, but not overly cold. Because the challenge I see with a lot of folks is our winter is-- still a winter up here where a lot of people don't have a real winter anymore, where they'll get warm phases here. The bees will activate. They'll actually find pollen sometimes. Then it'll snow, it'll get cold again. That chaos of the climate is really stressful on the bees. Because I see it once or twice in a winter and I see how stressful it is.

What I'm trying to do is keep the bees in the cluster cold, or the exposure temperature, at say a -5, just so that inside there's still a toasty 15, 20 Celsius. The exposure temperature, exposure temperature is the temperature just below the cluster. I want it in basically the 0 degrees, -5 degrees to 5 degrees because the research says that's the perfect temperature. That's the temperature they want in inside sheds is around 5 degrees Celsius, or 0 degrees to 4 degrees, because that'll be their more optimal temperature for consuming the least honey. Okay? That's what the condensing hive does.

If it's warm outside and the bees warm up, then they'll activate. Then they'll say, "Hey, is it spring yet?" They may actually start brood rearing if you get a week of warm temperature. Then those bees no longer are winter bees. You can see how these temperature fluctuations, I think it's easier to keep bees up here than a lot of folks down south. Because I could just butt them up and then I go do my skiing and travel and stuff in winter and it's winter. They're in that freezer. I know they're in a really nice condition. Then that piece of plywood that I put leaning on the front of that colony, keeps it dark, helps keep that entrance cool, so the bees stay in cluster for most of the winter, unless it gets really, really hot.

Becky: They're never doing cleansing flights in the winter?

Etienne: No.

Becky: Because I will see them when it's 32 degrees successfully fly out and fly back. You're keeping your bees inside all winter long?

Etienne: Just to put things in perspective, my singles consume 25 to 30 pounds from late September to mid-April. 25 pounds to 30 pounds. A double might consume 40 to 50, if even that. If you start looking at numbers mid-US down, you see the recommendations are a lot of their bees consume double, triple what my bees consume in eight months of winter than what folks need to do down south. The key is lower metabolic rate, reduce the honey consumption. It means that they can go longer without a cleansing flight. They can actually go a good six, seven months, even eight months. In March, early April, things will warm up.

What I'll do is I'll take that piece of plywood and I'll flop it on top of the snow. Now you've got a nice, I don't know, 2 by 4 foot piece of plywood covering the snow. Then the bees will get activated and then they'll actually go and do their cleanse and then hang around on that piece of plywood and then go back and then freeze again that night, because daytime high might be a 5 degrees Celsius, but the morning low is still -15, -20 degrees. Hence the reason I have to be careful with these activations. I won't do that first pollen patty until they've had a good cleanse.

Becky: A good rule for everybody to follow, don't feed pollen sub until they've actually been able to start their cleansing flights.

Jeff: Etienne, I hate to say this, but we're quickly approaching R into time and I feel like we've only just got started. I didn't even get to talk to you about any of the technical stuff. Maybe we can invite you back sometime to get into sensors and graphing and all of the fun stuff like that. Is there anything you would like to tell our listeners that we haven't asked you about yet?

Etienne: Just the simple one is, if your system works and you can consistently get a good 75% to 80% of your bees through winter, don't change anything. I understand why you're successful, but don't change anything. If you can't get more than half your bees through winter, you got to try something new and think outside the box.

Becky: Excellent advice.

Jeff: No matter what aspect of beekeeping you're talking about. Etienne, thank you so much for joining us today. I look forward to having you back.

Becky: Thank you, Etienne. This is fascinating information.

Etienne: It was my pleasure. Always enjoy.

Jeff: Hey, Becky, I really enjoyed talking to Etienne. Could you tell?

Becky: I think that there was a little bit of a competition between the two of us because I think we both had a lot of questions and one of us wanted to go into tech and sensors and the other was really fascinated with the biology and management. Hopefully that we both got something out of it, but we definitely need to ask him back.

Jeff: I restrained myself because I figured it was probably about me and three other people listening who really wanted to get into the technical stuff, but the biology and the management aspects Etienne was talking about was very cool and it's really topical for many of the guests we've talked to this year and the whole topic, as we go into the winter months, about insulation and the dynamics inside the colony. As beekeepers, we button them up in November or December and we don't think about them, dust our hands, we party, have Christmas, come back around March and open them up. Etienne lets us know there's a lot going on inside that colony during that period.

Becky: Oh, that's well said, Jeff.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any web page. We want to thank our regular episode sponsors, Betterbee, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books for their generous support.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the Beekeeping Today Podcast listener for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions and comments at the "Leave a comment" section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

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