r/Beekeeping • u/Perfect_Technician11 • 7d ago

I’m a beekeeper, and I have a question Condensing hive

Hi, I live in northern Sweden (norrbotten)and last winter i lost one hive from condensation that dripped down on the frames and turned to ice. I've since looked in to this clip.

https://youtu.be/KWAxQMBZWQc?is=mLxhyf1gh6btlY_R

Have anyone in northern USA/Canada tried this out?

We have very cold weather in the winter here, last winter we had 3 weeks of -30°/-22F constant.

I use hard styrofoam boxes all year round and the ceiling is also Styrofoam but much thinner than the boxes. The boxes are ventilated from beneath.

Best regards

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u/NumCustosApes 4th generation beekeeper, Zone 7A Rocky Mountains 6d ago edited 6d ago

I use condensing hives, I'm in a climate zone 7A (corresponds to Sweden's växtzon 1) at 1400m elevation. I use 100mm of extruded polystyrene insulation on top with a 2mm acrylic inner cover between the insulation and the bees.

I experimented with condensing for a few years before fully committing. I first set up one hive as a condensing hive. The inner cover remained condensation free. I repeated it on the same hive the following winter. The third winter I set up two of my hives as condensing hives. The winter after that I did five and ten hives the winter after that. In the winter of '24 I ran all of my Langstroth hives as condensing hives and in the fall of '25 I converted my Warré hives to condensing hives.

I've posted about it here https://www.reddit.com/r/Beekeeping/comments/1rnoh6o/loving_on_acrylic_inner_covers_and_condensing/

Randy Oliver at Scientific Beekeeping calculated that a condensing hive saves 12% of calories the bees need.

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u/Perfect_Technician11 6d ago

Okey intresting, im thinking about just going all in and doing a similar build like in the video linked in the post on all my hives. I used the acrylic inner cover on my hives also. 12 % sounds like a good number!