With the continued rain of the past few days, I wondered about the bees. Where are they in the winter? And what if it rains continuously and they cannot fly?
Answer
Dear Mara,
if the sun shines even for a moment and the temperature is high enough you will indeed see bees flying on the flowers everywhere. They collect nectar and pollen on those flowers, and with this food they fly to the hive. After a while, honey is formed from that nectar. The pollen contains a lot of proteins, fat, minerals and vitamins and is used as food for raising the larvae in the nest. If the temperature is now too low and it rains, the bees can feed on the supplies of honey and pollen that they have built themselves in their nest. These supplies are intended as a reserve for bad days, and for during the winter. During the winter the bees huddle very close together, they form the so-called “winter cluster”, which is actually a sphere of bees. In this way the bees lose the least heat. In that sphere, the bees will start to feed themselves with honey (or with sugar water if the beekeeper has removed the honey). After all, this food provides energy and warmth to the body. If the temperature is really very low, the bees will huddle even closer together and that “winter truss” becomes even smaller. The bees on the outside will each in turn also crawl inside the truss to warm up. Inside the truss the temperature is between 15 and 25 °C. During the winter, such a bulb contains 1 queen and about 15,000 to 20,000 bees.
Kind regards,
Hans
Answered by
Hans Casteels
identification of pest insects in agriculture and horticulture, stock goods and homes
Burg. van Gansberghelaan 96 box 1 9820 Merelbeke
http://www.ilvo.vlaanderen.be
.