Wrapping your beehive with insulation – Beginning Beekeeping

Where we live in Northwestern Connecticut, it gets quite cold. Not as cold as I remember as a kid in Wisconsin, but its cold. Temperatures for a week in January were around 6 degrees F.

Now that we have our new weather station, provided by AllisonHouse, we will be able to gather historical weather data, and see just how cold it gets when. If you’d like to get weather history in your local area, go to WeatherUnderground, type in your Town and State. It is likely someone nearby has a weather station that is sending information to WeatherUnderground. Your local weather will be displayed – the site can be confusing -  but look around for a link to the weather history, and there may be a pull down menu to check other nearby weather stations.

Installing our AllisonHouse wireless solar powered Weather station

How to winterize your beehives is, like any other subject on beekeeping, one with many opinions. At the start of the winter season, we wrapped our beehives with black tar paper, and put on polystyrene outer covers. You can watch our Beginning Beekeeping video on Preparing for Winter here

wrapping a hive with tar paper last fall

But I was browsing through the Bee Culture magazine and I came across this insulated wrap material called Colony Quilt, sold by B&B Honey Farms, that was inexpensive, and rugged. The wrap has an R rating of about 3.7, and it is also UV stable and wind resistant.

I went out and wrapped both our hives with this material in January. I think it will help keep the bee cluster warm.

What do you do to prepare your hives for winter? Do you leave your screened bottom boards open or closed? Any wraps you use?

Our hive that we've put in the shed for bear protection