Where do bees go in the cold winter months?Do the hibernate or fly south for the winter or what?
Question by KristieW: Where do bees go in the cold winter months?Do the hibernate or fly south for the winter or what?
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3 Responses to Where do bees go in the cold winter months?Do the hibernate or fly south for the winter or what?
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most bees go underground or hole up in a hollow tree or something similar
buildings are becoming very common wintering grounds
BIGgourami
September 26, 2013 at 11:46 am
honeybees live in the hive and survive off of honey, most hibernate
Crikey a Wild Ski Bum
September 26, 2013 at 12:21 pm
It depends on the type of bee that you are asking about. There are solitary bees. With these bees only the fertilized queen overwinters and starts a new family in the the spring. I believe you are asking about the honey bee? These bees that the beekeeper manages may have up to 75,000 bees that overwinter in the hive. The feral honey bees that have escaped in their swarming mode, hole up in trees caves etc.
These bees store up honey for the winter. They keep their hive (nest) at about 92F all winter long so they can survive the cold and raise a new brood for the next summer. They keep it warm my vibrating their muscles to produce heat. They need a lot of stored honey for energy.
The Drones are kicked out to die in the fall cold. The queen will lay eggs in midwinter to have a new supply of workers for the spring. The worker females that gathered the honey will not make it through the winter. The queen may last as long as ten years. This type of bee is known as social and will have all stages of development almost all year long..
The solitary and semi solitary bees only have queens live by hibernating through the winter. The rest die at fall like the drones of the honey bee from the cold and starvation..
VINCE
September 26, 2013 at 1:12 pm