I have had problems getting bees to winter over. The plastic hives do seem to help.

Zero experience with them. I see a few sitting around here and there but can’t tell you first hand plus or minus of them

We’ve had bees in state for many generations but nothing above the general vicinity of 45th parallel so can’t give any specifics for farther north. As a real broad brush statement, healthy bees in southern part of state aren’t much impacted by temps as far as it killing them. There are exceptions but I consider wind to be harder on them in the cold—-good example is wintering just off Lake Michigan shoreline. Bees that typically succumb to cold itself more often than not went into winter on a very small/insufficient cluster where not enough heat is generated or they become isolated on empty comb and are unable to get themselves to nearby food (even one frame away) in cold. Bees are way more likely to die from diseases and starvation that weren’t addressed by beekeeper

I’m just old and stubborn at this point as I don’t practice wrapping or insulating hives. However I have experimented plenty with both over decades and can point to advantages of doing it so there’s definitely some upside to be considered. In my case normally have way more than enough colonies going into winter that potential gains aren’t worth effort expended in wrapping or insulating. I would guess that those plastic/foam hives are actually better at staying warm and wind proof. Perhaps good investment in north if you have limited colony count and want to do everything to help them. Just not my personal thing.

Keep in mind that the equipment is more of a secondary consideration in this overall equation. Successful northern wintering amounts to entering late fall with enough healthy winter bees and adequate stores to sustain them to spring. Bees that perish in cold likely do so from not enough healthy winter bees. They probably didn’t make enough in late August thru September to have ample population to last until spring and that was almost always because they were overrun with either tracheal or varroa to begin with. That’s very first thing to deal with if you want to be successful. The second part concerning Adequate stores can look really different from beekeeper to beekeeper. I tend to run bees that have genes from colder climates to begin with. They naturally have smaller clusters and are more inclined to environmentally regulated. Meaning they shut down in fall and are slow to start off in spring all of which requires less stores for winter. But I can winter a southern style bee that’s primarily carrying italian style traits by giving them three deeps of honey for winter. Id think the higher R value hive body would benefit in that specific situation. I know adding a simple layer of insulation on top of the hive reduces honey consumption thru winter. If you are experiencing starvation over the winter , insulation might be something to consider either in foam on top or with plastic hive

We treat for verroa, several times once the honey supers come off, With smoke treatment Then I add sugar water if needed, Add newspaper on top of frames and 10 pound of white sugar on each hive . About February, May have to add more sugar if needed. We have insulated covers, that go on about November , for the winter. This has been working fairly well. I think wind , is a factor as well. Our bees are hivebound till at least april. old243

I've never kept bees so take this for what it's worth.

I remove trees full time, everyday. When we find healthy hives they're always in hollow trees that have a substantial amount of wood left, I assumed this is because it provides more insulation value than trees that have less wood to provide insulation

Ill look into it.My bees this year came from stock raised in Newberry,which is further north than me,not far from Lake Superior.He's been raising them now for years and they have a reputation as being pretty hardy.These were nucs,I've pretty much given up on package bees which are shipped up.here from California.Very hit and miss,I have successfully wintered them but the ratio of successes to failures was not good.Ill look for the info on the university,also,I have found YouTube to be a wealth of information related to cold weather bees.Thanks for the information.