Honey bees are often the sign that spring has arrived and we may see them all summer long. They work tirelessly on our behalf, pollinating plants and making the flowers grow. Many people may wonder, however, how honey bees are able to live through the cold winter.
Many bees and wasps hibernate when the winter weather arrives but honeybees are able to survive in a different way. Throughout the insect world, many insects can survive the winter using a type of hibernation and diapause. There are some bee species where only the Queen is able to survive the cold weather and she comes out in the spring to establish a new colony. Honey bees, however, continue to be active when winter weather arrives, even though there is a lack of flowers and freezing temperatures. They do so by creating their own heat.
To break it down on a simplistic level, wintering honey bees do have to stay warm and they need food to stay alive. In order to stay warm and to provide their food, they need the energy that is found in honey. If the honey is exhausted from the colony before the warm weather arrives, it is likely that the bees will freeze to death. That is one of the reasons why honey bees are such hard workers while the weather is warmer. They are busy collecting nectar, storing, and processing it to create as much honey as possible.
When summer begins to fade away and the autumn arrives, honey bees settle down for a long, cold winter. As the temperatures drop, the bees cluster inside of the hives. The Queen does not lay any more eggs starting in the late fall and early winter because of the limited amounts of food.
Honey bee workers create clusters around the Queen and the immature bees, including eggs and larva, when the outside temperatures are colder. The bees that make up the cluster point their heads inward and on the inside, those bees feed on the honey that’s been stored for the winter. On the outside of the cluster, there are bee companions that insulate those on the inside.
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If the temperature reaches approximately 57°F, the cluster gets tighter as the bees stay essentially motionless. They use their combined body heat and heat that is generated to keep the colony warm. They may also expand or contract the cluster to respond to temperature fluctuations. When the temperature outside goes up, the outside of the cluster separates slightly to allow for air circulation. When the temperatures drop, the cluster tightens.
Worker bees are also able to generate some heat within the hive as the temperatures drop even lower. They flex their flight muscles within the thorax of their body to do so, although their wings are not moving. As thousands of bees vibrate in unison, the temperature at the cluster’s center can warm to 93°F.
When the weather gets warmer during parts of the winter, the cluster will move inside of the hive to position themselves around fresh nectar sources and honey.
In 2016, the average colony of honey bees produced between 31-58 pounds of honey. This is up to three times more than what is necessary to keep the hive warm during winter. If the colony is especially large, up to 90 pounds of honey may be produced. When you stop to think about it, worker bees spend most of their time producing excess honey. Beekeepers take advantage of it by taking the surplus but making sure that the bees have enough left over so they make it through the winter.
The post How Do Honey Bees Survive The Cold Winter Weather? appeared first on The Animal Rescue Site News.
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