The incredible survival skills of huddling honeybees throughout the winter

The only kind of bee that manages to live socially during the winter are our honeybees.

Mated female bumbles survive alone safe in a hole in the ground whereas solitary don’t pupate and emerge until the weather is better.

Honeybees have learned the skill of surviving as a collective and use the warm bodies of their colleagues to help maintain a safe temperature.

Deep in the hive they will huddle together and swap places so that those in the centre who are toasty warm move out to the edge to let those shivering there to gain some heat.

The whole process is powered by the energy they get from eating their way through the stores of honey they have built up over the warmer months. This means that one of the key mistakes we beekeepers can make when we are finishing our year’s work is to take too much honey away from the bees.

In a good year the girls will build up far more stores than they need to get through the winter. When that happens one of the joys of autumn is taking away and enjoying a reasonable amount of the surplus as a reward for looking after our charges.

How much to take depends on circumstances that aren’t always easy to predict. The size of the colony matters but so does the type of plants that are in the locality.

Bees that live close to lots of ivy will get a very welcome late boost of supplies when it flowers. But the plant only produces nectar and pollen for a very few days and if the weather is inclement when it is flowering the bees get nothing.

Heather and Himalayan balsam also provide late season opportunities but an early frost or strong autumn winds can make big differences to how much the female workers can collect.

Any of the boys in the hive are dragged out as winter approaches and left to die. Winter is tough enough to get through without carrying any passengers who don’t collect food, don’t process honey and are only needed for mating in good times.

The other thing the workers will do to increase their chances is to plug every gap they can find in the hive with sticky material called propolis that they collect from buds or from tree resins.

The smallest space in the exterior of a hive can let in cold winds and leak heat so everything is sealed apart from the hive entrance.

Breaking that seal isn’t a good idea which is why most beekeepers like to do as little as possible in winter.

It is sometimes necessary to open a hive to treat bees against pests like the varroa mite but the best thing we can really do for our girls is to leave them alone.

Not every creature can be trusted to do that. In the depths of winter a beehive is a nice warm home for a small animal and comes with a very welcome supply of wax, insects and honey to eat.

Any mouse that tries to get into a hive in summer will be met with some very aggressive guard bees at the entrance and won’t be inclined to repeat the experiment.

In winter those guards may be huddled up with the others and will take time to raise their temperature and protect the hive. That gives a crafty mouse the chance to sneak in.

Part of the pre-winter ritual is therefore to put mouse guards on the front of the hive which are little strips of metal with holes in that are big enough for bees to get through but too small for a mouse.

Putting those on is not my favourite job. It requires messing about with drawing pins as you try and get a strip of metal into the right position wearing thick gloves designed to protect against bee stings.

Bees don’t like anything approaching the entrance to their hive and can get quite aggressive if a clumsy beekeeper takes too long to do the job.

Once the guard is safely in place and the hives have been reduced in height and firmly strapped down against the wind all is in order and little needs to be done until spring.

It doesn’t matter how hard the winter is the bees will usually get through. It does mater if the climate changes and we get a lot of warm wet winters because those are the conditions that are ideal for spreading disease and which tempt bees to try and fly out when there is no food to find.

This year we are settling down five healthy hives which is a record for us. We have every hope of them getting through winter and being ready to take advantage of being one of the first species to be out there searching for food when the warm spring weather and the good times return.