Winter Lockdown for the Vicarage Honey Bees
As some of you will know, Jeremy and Julia very kindly offered to host our two bee colonies in the vicarage garden. We are extremely grateful to them both for their kindness, openness, generosity and interest. During our post-service zoom calls, parishioners have been asking us what happens to bees during the winter months.
Winter can be a risky time for honeybees. Many other insects including bumble bees hibernate during winter, but honeybees hunker down inside their hives, and huddle together to keep warm and protect their precious queen.
Fewer bees are needed in the winter so colonies shrink in size. The queen stops laying eggs, and the male drones, no longer seen as essential workers, are banished. The all-female winter workforce, fed on a low fat, high protein diet when they were autumn larvae, are fatter, stronger and have a longer lifespan (4–6 months instead of only a few weeks) than their summer sisters. They need to survive the entire winter.
When outside temperatures begin to drop, these winter worker bees retreat to their hives and form a tight winter cluster. They shiver and vibrate their wing muscles to generate a survivable heat (32–37°C). The outer layer line up and face into the cluster to create a thermal barrier, while inner bees feed on their stored honey for energy. Though the queen is always at the warmest centre of the cluster, worker bees rotate their position from the outside to the inside, so no individual gets too cold. The colder the weather is outside, the more compact the cluster becomes.
To sustain themselves and the heat, the cluster moves in formation around the hive to reach their reserves of honey. For most of the winter, the cluster stays intact, but when temperatures outside rise, the bees will take ‘cleansing flights’ and eliminate body waste. They never defecate inside the hive.
The queen is waited upon and fed and groomed, and spreads her pheromones to keep her colony happy. She only resumes her egg-laying in January or February in order to strengthen the size of the colony for the season ahead. This new brood will help to replace the bees that have died during the winter, and to ensure there are enough bees for spring foraging.
The colony’s ability to survive the winter depends in part on the stores of honey they have built up during the warmer months, and a careful beekeeper should ensure they have more than enough reserves to last them the winter. Our two colonies had limited stores this year, so we decided not to take any honey from them. So far they seem to still be thriving, though they have several more weeks to get through. Dampness in early spring is another big threat, so we are hoping they will make it.