My first time wrapping a hive in silver bubble wrap. I probably should have attached it with screws instead of heavy duty tacks that might pop off in high winds. But we’ll see. It was a lot cheaper than buying official hive wraps made from the same material. The hive wraps would have been about $20-40 for a full-size Langstroth hive, but this came in at around $10, maybe a little more.
Hi mate!
Careful, you need an air gap of a couple cm for reflective insulation to work.
Without it, you will only get the insulation from the air bubbles, which is not much :(
I need to have a gap of a couple of cm between the wrap and the hive for it to work? If that’s the case, then everyone I’ve seen using this kind of wrap is using it wrong. Which is possible. We could all be using it wrong. But I haven’t seen any examples of this hive wrap being used other than how I’m using it.
I haven’t used the stuff hives, but that’s how you’d want to use it for home insulation. Ex:
https://atticfoil.com/index.php/about-radiant-barrier/why-is-an-air-space-required/
Without an air gap, you might as well use regular bubble wrap.
Same effect, probably cheaper.
That’s interesting. I’ll have to look into this and see if anyone else using it with the gap between the hive and the wrap.
From what I can see, everyone using this wrap has it tight to the hive. The advertisements for it state: “It helps keep the air at a constant temperature inside the hive by reflecting 97% of the radiant heat of bees back to the cluster, at the same time reflecting 97% of the outside temperatures away from the hive.” I don’t know how factual that is, but like many hive wraps, I suspect the main benefit to the bees is as a windbreak, but I’m curious to see if it makes any difference.
I have hives in three locations and they’re all different. One is out in the open where they get sun most of the day but also get battered by high winds.
The second is in a place where the hives are in sun most of the day but are fairly well sheltered. I haven’t wrapped them yet.
The third, next to my house — the hives don’t get much sun but are well sheltered from the wind. I plan to wrap some more of those hives in a week or two.