Wow winter 2-1 feeding is costly.

[derekm]

The talk on this forum seems always about extra ventilating in winter. Most sites on the net in north america advocate it...
Please show me some places were it doesnt, I would really like it if N.America wasn't all top vent/top entrance in winter, but thats the flavour i find in all recent texts

http://capabees.org/content/uploads/2013/02/winteringpdf.pdf
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeswinter.htm
http://www.mannlakeltd.com/newsletter/Wintering-bees.pdf
http://www.beeworks.com/informationcentre/wintering.html
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-keep-a-beehive-in-the-fall.seriesId-249703.html
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in1006
http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/html_pubs/BEEKEEP/CHAPT5/chapt5.html
http://www.hudsonvillehoney.com/2011/12/01/wintering-bees-in-michigan/
http://westmtnapiary.com/winter_cluster.html
http://www.greatnorthernprepper.com/wintering-bees-in-alaska/

and many others
but  in older north american  texts e.g. 1915 you dont see this

p.s. what do you mean by 100% upper entrances

Proof positive, just because it's on the internet doesn't make it true.  Buzzbee is correct.  100% means top entrance only.  There are some here who advocate that here but I'd bet 95% of Lang hives are mainly bottom entrance here.  How many of them have any form of upper entrance?  I don't know.  All of my 25 hives do, but they are 5% of the size of the bottom entrance.  They're there for venting, cooling, and helping evaporation during the 9 months of activity.  This time of the year they get propolized closed.  I don't have upper entrances of any form on my nucs though.  None of the other hives I've seen or worked, with local beekeepers, had any form of upper entrances.

I've learnt  some new terminology then. Let me rephrase, You  need 0% top entrance and 0% top vent for high insulation to work and give reduced stores consumption.

I still have yet to see much in the way of advocating that level (0%) of top vent/entrance in the U.S.  (btw a lot of the internet sites in the UK still advocate top vents in winter, but less so now).

In your experience/opinoion What proportion of N.American. bee keepers (who have winters where it is often below 0C 32F ) have no (0%) top vent or entrance in winter?

[D Coates]

Not sure.  Does a notch cut into an inner cover count as an upper entrance?

[derekm]

Not sure.  Does a notch cut into an inner cover count as an upper entrance?

it certainly counts as a vent

[OzarksFarmGirl]

Yes, sugar is cheaper now that it has been for years.

GMO beet sugar is, and it accounts for over 50% of all sugar sold in the U.S., and 95% of all sugar made from beets.  But not so much cane sugar, and the only way to know is if the bag specifically says that it's "100% cane sugar". Otherwise, if the ingredient list just says "sugar" you can be pretty much guaranteed that it's from GMO beets.