Gift wrapping the bees

It's time to wrap up the bees for the winter - December 1st or before the snow flies.This year my hive is much stronger, and larger, and they will be wintering in two supers, plus the Salon.One 2x8´sheet of rigid styrofoam is perfect for a two-super hive - three 32" pieces.Three sides get wrapped with foam, tar paper only on the front, so the black helps them heat up inside on sunny days, maybe enough to go for a cleansing flight.  All this is what I learned from my "bee guru" at Bello Uccello. I cut the foam very precise to use the overlap designed into the foam (which means the back piece is custom).  Otherwise the corners will leak cold.  Then a couple of pieces of Tuck tape to hold it all in place for the tar paper wrap.The 2" thick foam sticks out farther than the outer cover/lid, so I also cut a step in the foam to nest the lid into.  I'm doing it a little different than last year.Then the paper:It wraps flat around the front of the hive, covering the doors and shutting the bees in completely for a few minutes.  They can't love that.  There's a little artful paper slicing required to make everything fold flat and smooth around the alighting board.  Lots of staples on the front - no wrinkles.Then it's time to cut out the doors.Oh!  There's a bee!The Salon, aka drone cafe - the empty/feeder box above the inner cover (I've called it the Salon since they started doing art installations in there) is already filled with straw (to help insulate and absorb moisture), and the bees just finished their second last jar of syrup for the year.  Now they will be closed in with their last jar.I did this thing last year with the lid/outer cover, and it worked quite well so I'm repeating it.  One piece of basic "pebble" styrofoam cut exactly to size, jammed into the underside of the lid.Then a piece of corrugated cut to size as well, so the bees aren't in direct contact with the styrofoam ever.  This gives them an inch of insulation on the ceiling.  When I took it apart last spring the cardboard was damp on the edges and I threw it away. Just after I closed the lid and was doing the final touches on the edges of the tar paper, the bees started buzzing outside in droves.I thought I'd agitated them, but it may have been that time of the day, or the sunny day had warmed up enough right then to go for a fly, but they were on a group cleansing flight, which I realized when I noticed all the bright yellow poop dots on my hands and sleeves!This is what I'm doing differently this year.  My final step was taking another piece of tar paper over the top of the lid, folding gift corners and taping it down to the sides (instead of tacking the tar paper to the lid).  In theory, if I need to get a jar in there in the early spring, I can take off the lid by slitting the tape and tape it back up; it won't be very disruptive.Then I put a metal sheet (actually a piece of shelving that happens to be a perfect size) over top of the whole thing and ratchet-strapped it down.  The oversize temporary winter lid puts an extra 8-10" of eave over the front doors.Only two days late- that's as close to on time as I get around here.  Seconds after finishing, while I was carrying tools away, snowflakes started to fall.Last year I was so worried about them.  They'd re-queened three times in the year, their first,  I got them late, and they didn't have good numbers.  But they made it through.This year I'm a little more confident.  It's interesting to me, all the local former beekeepers (no one nearby currently has hives) never wintered their bees!  They bought nucs in the spring and they died in the winter.  Sounds expensive.Having been told how to do it, it seems easy.