First winter with a hive on my apartment roof in İzmir — sun all day, wind off the sea, no shade
İzmir, second year. Two of my hives are on family land outside the city but one sits on the flat roof of our apartment building, which seemed like a clever idea in April and has taught me a lot since. Summer nearly cooked them — the concrete and the bitumen roof surface held heat all night and they bearded until 2 am — and now I'm heading into my first winter up there and I don't know which problems change.
What I think is different about a roof. There's no shelter at all, and the wind off the bay in winter is constant and sometimes violent. And I can't exactly plant a hedge.
What I'm planning: strap the hive down properly to the parapet, build a low windbreak out of something heavy that won't itself become a missile, raise the hive off the concrete on a stand so water doesn't pool under the floor, and reduce the entrance against robbing. I don't think insulation is the issue in İzmir — the issue is exposure.
Has anyone here wintered a rooftop colony? What did I miss, and is a roof genuinely a worse site in winter than in summer, or the other way round?
#urban-beekeeping#rooftop#wind-protection#turkey
▲ 9 votes💬 4 replies✅ Solved
4 replies
muglabalci · Oct 25, 2026 · ✅ Accepted answer
Muğla. Your analysis is right and your plan is most of the answer. Winter on a roof in our climate is easier than summer — the heat is what nearly killed them, and wind you can build against. Strap to something structural, not to the parapet coping, which can come away. And keep a water source up there; in winter they'll still fly and a roof has nothing.
AbejasCarla · Oct 25, 2026
Andalusia, and I've kept hives on a flat roof in Seville. Two things I learned: put something insulating between the floor and the concrete — a wooden pallet is enough — because bare concrete cooks in summer and chills in winter. And face the entrance away from the prevailing wind even if that means a slightly awkward position for you.
DevonBees_Em · Oct 26, 2026
Devon, and completely different climate, but on strapping: a hive on an exposed roof wants a strap right round hive and stand together, and the stand itself weighted or fixed. A tall unweighted stand on a windy roof is the thing that'll fail. elif_arici, is there anything above you that could drop on it in a storm — aerials, a water tank, solar panels?
elif_arici · Oct 26, 2026
DevonBees_Em — there's a solar water tank about four metres away, which I hadn't thought about at all. Moving the hive to the other side of the roof this week, pallet under the stand, one strap round the lot. Thank you.