Honeybees in man-made hives may have been suffering the cold unnecessarily for over a century because commercial hive designs are based on erroneous science, my new research shows.
For 119 years, a belief that the way honeybees cluster together gives them a kind of evolutionary insulation has been fundamental for beekeeping practice, hive design and honeybee study. More recently, California beekeepers have even been putting bee colonies into cold storage during summer because they think it is good for brood health.
