If I had bee hives right now, they would probably look like this. We are supposed to get about a foot of snow over the next few days. For Charlottesville, this is a big deal as it has not happened here for a long time. If I did have hives right now my mind should be at ease. Hopefully I would have left about 60 pounds of honey or sugar water for food and they were ventilated adequately to prevent a build up of moisture inside the hives.
One question I always get about honeybees is “Do they hibernate?”. Although to the casual observer viewing the hive from the outside it can understandably be thought that the bees simply live off of their fat reserves while in a suspended animation. This is not the case, although if it were, it would make our hobby a little bit easier.
First of all, honeybees do store a type of fat called vitellogenin in their abdomen and head. Vitellogenin is a compound comprised of properties of sugar (glyco, 2%), fat (lipo, 7%), and protein (91%) (Wheeler & Kawooya 2005). However this fat is not used by individual honeybees for energy but for providing nutrition to the eggs and larva within their care. This is another story for another discussion. Lastly honeybees do not hibernate, but simply slow down their production to meet the lack of resources coming around the bend during Winter.
They begin by slowing down their operations during late summer. The queen will begin to taper off the amount of eggs she is laying and the worker bees will begin to throw the seemingly lazy drones out of the hive to starve to death. After all, their services are not needed until late Spring when new queens will begin flying around on their nuptial flight.
As the weather becomes colder the honeybees will contract the size of their cluster to compensate for the cooler temperatures. This contraction process makes it easier for the honeybees to generate and maintain warmer temperatures through shivering their flight muscles to produce heat. However if it gets too cold the bees may contract to the point that their honey stores become out of reach. This can be especially deadly for them if temperatures are constantly cool for long periods of time. Once a honeybee’s internal temperature drops below 48 degrees they are not able to activate their flight muscles to generate heat and will soon die.
One can view the colony’s cluster as an earth like spheroid having a core and an outer mantle layer. Inside the core, the temperatures are at their highest usually between 64-90 degrees Fahrenheit. As one moves towards the surface of the colony cluster, the temperature within the mantle drops to an average range of about 48-57 degrees Fahrenheit. The outer layer becomes an insulation barrier for the core from the cool external temperatures. Throughout the day the honeybees will move between the two layers and access the honey stores near the surface of the the mantle layer, continually providing themselves with new energy sources.
During the winter season, if the honeybees are lucky enough, they may get a day when the temperatures outside the hive rises above 64 degrees Fahrenheit. At this point the honeybees will begin taking cleansing flights. Basically, fly outside the hive to “drop the kids off at the pool”. You know this is happening especially if their is snow outside as you will see flecks of yellow on the surface. This is not pollen but pure Grade A bee “crap”. I am sure someday some snake oil sales man will begin marketing this as a new herbal tea mix that can cure cancer and replace coal for an energy source.
For me it is amazing to see this type of behavior in insects. Millions of years ago, when did this behavior first begin to be employed? One can easily see how this behavior would give honeybees a great advantage over other like insects of the time. They could expand their habitat into cooler regions, giving themselves a wider range to cull for resources. God you have to love evolution!
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