Weather

After the weather being in the 80's for the past week, the temps have taken a nose dive. Last night it was 48 and the temps in the day are going to be in the 60's all week. At night they are going to be upper 40's lower 50's.... That is going to throw the girls for a loop and cause breed heating issues.

I will go ahead and tell everyone one trick I have been trying. On the days and nights where it drops below 60, I have been running a red flood 100 watt light in a heat lamp socket under the screened bottom board (SBB) until it reaches 70 outside airtemp, then I turn it off. I have found that it raises the temperature on the SBB inside the hive by 25 degrees, no matter what the outside air temp is. This allows the nurse bees in the bottom brood chamber to not have to work so hard at keeping the brood warm. Wax production happens at 95 degrees, this keeps them closer to that range with less effort as well.

I have also been trying a 25 watt reptile aquarium heater with less success. I have placed it on the counting board inserted just below the SBB. It only heats anywhere from 5-20 degrees above outside temp. And it closes off the SBB. It is too wild and variable for regulating the temps in the hive.

Right now the temp inside the SBB on the bottom of the hive reads 66.5 degrees. That is without the heat lamp on.  With it on, stabilized and running for 15 minutes it is reading 85.7. The wind is blowing and lowers the temp a little.