There’s a snap of my area’s - suburbs of Philadelphia Pennsylvania US - averages. My one local bee friend says her hives had a lot of condensate inside once it got cold last fall.
Well what was the difference in the colony? Not much apart from the outside temperature I would guess. Insulate thehive so that the walls and especially the top are not cold and there is no condensation
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Yes please…
Ok, phone storage issues resolved & now I’m able to show you what I’ve been yapping about:
First, combs in my medium brood box under the deep:
I’ve decided to leave this box where it is, since there’s decent storage of pollen/bee bread, plus empty cells for clustering. Above this box there is a nice full deep box fatly packed with bees & honey. I fed 2:1 syrup for 3 weeks and then removed the baggie & replaced it with superfine sugar on newspaper (two sheets) directly on the top frames. Over that I placed the hive quilt I made:
As you can see, the tea towel - cheers, @Dawn_SD - is stretched across a wood frame inset, rather than right across the bottom as some instructions describe, leaving room for winter feeding & eliminating the need for an imrie shim or mountain camp rim. I plan do a quick mod when we get a milder day & stick a brace in across the middle for support with sagging which will only get worse as moisture is absorbed up into the chips.
I put the inner cover on top of the quilt, and then a nice insulated outer cover. Finally, a brick 
Last thing I need to do is wrap the hive with the water heater insulated wrap I just bought - has 6.75 R value & seemed like a reasonable choice at $18.
I should also mention that I wedged one more paint stir stick onto the stack of two I’ve had as an entrance reducer since summer, for cold air tightness, and will make sure the wrap extends to cover the SBB area in back.
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I guess Americans don’t use the word “tea towel”? What do you call them?? 
I love, love, love the color of your quilt box. Gorgeous! 
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Some Anglophiles here call them tea towels, but ‘dish towel’ or ‘dish cloth’ might be more common. As for me, I find some words nicer-sounding & looking than others. Grey for example, looks more like the color to me than gray. Mainly, I thought you’d appreciate another use of these in beekeeping, as a proponent of using tea towels to shield bees during inspection 
My choice of a tea towel for this use was serendipitous (nicer than accidental) because the canvas drop cloth my DH brought home turned out to have a non-porous rubber backing! And I wasn’t in the mood to go back to the store. Or use an ugly piece of burlap 
And thanks for the compliment about the paint color 
I love it too - it’s the leftover paint I used on my foyer walls, with polyurethane spray coat on the outer surfaces for weather protection.
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I always thought a dish cloth was for getting thoroughly wet and washing dishes, like dish soap! 
Dish towel, I can accept, but I prefer tea towel, even though it isn’t used (by us) for drying tea! 
Thanks for the extra pictures, looks like you have done a lovely job. Lucky bees!
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Looks great Eva and [quote=“Eva, post:26, topic:8946”]
I find some words nicer-sounding & looking than others
[/quote]
so do I… serendipitous is one of my favourites…
I think I may have missed something but just wondered why your hive quilt or roof extends so far out at front? Is it a telescoping lid?
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What geeks we are 
!
Kirsten, about the far-extending bit, yes that’s the telescoping lid/outer cover - I got it extra large so insulation would fit around the stack & not get rain coming between it & the sides. The hive quilt is just under that, same color.
A slight caveat about my choice of insulation though - I opened it to put it on yesterday & found that it’s only faced with the vinyl-coated paper on one side. I don’t like the idea of exposed fiberglass batting, so I’ll staple landscape fabric to it (got some in the shed). @solareagle just curious, was your water heater blankie fully enclosed?
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Hi Eva, just saw your note, my water heater blanket was raw fibreglass on the inside, sounds the same as yours…vinyl on the outside. It was $49 Cdn so consider yourself lucky if you just paid $18 for the same. Are you concerned about the fibreglass? Didn’t occur to me.
Hi! Thanks for posting- I guess the stuff just freaks me out a little, ever since I went exploring in our family’s attic when I was about 7 years old & got it in my eyes 
Lesson learned, but regarding use on the hive I wondered if mice would try to burrow up inside it, since around here they are interested in hives as a winter nesting spot.
Would you believe I still haven’t put the wrap on yet!? We have had so many more mild days and nights that I let it go…but today is the day actually, so your timing is great, and since you posted I may just not go to all the trouble of facing the whole other side. Perhaps just turn the edges so no batting is hanging out…
Having flashbacks to new motherhood!! So, surely I’m overthinking things 
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We do call them tea towels!
Wash cloths and wash rags are different materials.