Cheryl Lacerick, age 12, of Wickliffe, Ohio, for her question:
What do bees do when winter comes?
A little honey now and then provides the body with rich nourishing food. This delicious and nutritious menu item, of course, is provided by the honeybees. No doubt this is why so many sensible students are interested in learning all they can about these amazing insects.
Flowers and honeybees belong together. They need and depend on each other. But the fragile flowers cannot abide the cold and plants do not blossom during the winter. This deprives the bees of the nectar and pollen they use to make honey and other bee foods. Besides, they can't abide the cold either. So when winter comes, they tuck themselves inside their warm, .cosy hive and live on their stores of sweet nourishing honey.
During the busy summer season, most worker bees work themselves to death in about six weeks. Hence, many are ready to perish in the fall. At this time, the queen stops laying eggs and no new workers are born. The survivers turn their attention to sealing cracks in the hive with weatherproof, waterproof wax. They also make sure that their waxy white cells are stuffed with winter supplies of honey and safely sealed. All summer they fed and tended the male drones, who do no work. Before the first frost, the pampered drones are rousted outside to perish in the cold. But the queen mother is fed and tended as usual.
When winter arrives, a hive of about 50,000 workers, drones and growing bees is reduced to perhaps 10,000 surviving workers plus their queen mother. Their cosy hive seals out the wintry weather and there is no need to leave home until spring brings back the flowers.
Inside the hive, the furry little bees bundle themselves together in a big round ball. This helps to share and hold in the warmth. Apparently they feel the cold because the bees in the middle of the furry ball, where things are warmer, keep changing places with those on the outside.
Obviously they must eat, though they do not need as much food as they do during the busy summer season. Now and then, each worker sips a snack from the honey stored in waxy combs. She takes just so much and no more than her share. In this way, the food supply is rationed to last through the winter. There is also a supply of royal jelly made especially for the queen. If her favorite food runs out, she shares the rations of ordinary honey with her daughters.
When the winter is long and severe, none of the workers poke a whisker outdoors. But sometimes a mid winter warm spell brings a few sunny days. Then a few daring workers may leave the hive. They fly around, perhaps hoping to find a flower or just scouting the scenery and soon return home. In some mysterious way the wintering bees know just when the winter is over. They zoom outside to welcome the first breath of spring and prepare at once to take up their busy chores.