How bees prepare for winter

Autumn is here, and winter is just around the corner. In Iowa, that means cold weather and plenty of snow. People and animals all have different ways of keeping warm.

Here are some ways bees prepare to live through the winter when there are not flowers where they can harvest pollen and nectar.

Preparing food

Throughout the spring and summer, bees collect pollen and nectar from flowers and use it to make honey. In the winter — when flowers aren’t producing pollen and nectar — bees eat the honey they saved up throughout the warmer months.

When bees are under the care of a beekeeper, some of that honey is harvested for people to eat, but beekeepers always make sure to leave enough for the bees to sustain themselves when it gets cold, said Bob Wolff, a beekeeper in Cedar Rapids who has been working with bees for about 30 years.

“We generally keep about 70 to 80 pounds of honey in the hive,” Wolff said.

Staying healthy

Bees in Iowa usually retreat into their hive for winter toward the end of October. Wolff stops collecting honey from the hives he keeps in early September. That way he has time to check and treat the bees for diseases and mites before the cold comes.

That also gives the bees time to collect more honey that they’ll use to feed themselves until spring.

Staying warm

Once the bees have gone into their hives for the winter, their bodies slow down, and they group together around the queen. According to Wolff, the bees will ensure the queen maintains a temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit, regardless of how cold it is outside.

“They’re not moving all that much. They’re moving very little, if any,” Wolff said. “In a good strong beehive, you have about 80,000 bees in the hive.”

All those bees snuggle up close to each other to create warmth by vibrating their bodies They get closer and closer the colder it gets.

Bees will remain in their hives until the temperature gets high enough that flowers start to bloom again, and then they immediately start collecting nectar and pollen to make more honey.

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