Thread by @the_beeguy

It’s winter. The buzzing has stopped - mostly.
So what’s happened to all the #bees?
You’ve been asking…so a quick thread to broadly account for our little friends at this time of year.
Please #retweet and #share.
You know the drill.
The more informed the better for bees. 1/12

And they do need better from us!

Spoiler alert!
Bumbles - new queens in hibernation.
Solitaries - kids in cocoons.
Honeys - small ball of hot hive-bound bees.

So let’s start with honey #bees and get them out of the way as you know they’re not really our thing here.
2/12

#Honeybees don’t hibernate. They reduce the colony numbers but stay active within the hive.
As temperatures drop (below 50ºF) they form a cluster (ball of bees) in the hive in order to use body heat primarily to keep the queen alive. This cluster will have a densely…
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…packed ‘outer shell’ of bees surrounding a less tightly packed inner core and requires a lot of honey and body vibrating to maintain the heat required for survival - up to 100ºF in the centre. #Honeybee worker life expectancy increases greatly during the winter from…
4/12

…around 6 weeks during the summer to up to 6 months over winter due mainly to the lower work load. Male honey bees don’t do winter - dying off before the colony retreat to the hive! In warmer climes the colony works all year round.

Next up we have the solitary #bees.
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After mating in spring/summer the female will have prepared a nest into which she will have laid her eggs in individual pods/cells - fertilised eggs will become females and unfertilised eggs often laid nearer the nest entrance will become males. She will have provisioned…
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…these pods with food before sealing them up. The males and females will have died off shortly afterwards leaving the kids to ‘fend for themselves’. The eggs hatch and the larvae will eat the food provided and develop into adults while overwintering in their pods/cocoons…
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…which is where they are now.

And finally to the big girls of the bee world - the bumbles.
Towards the end of summer #bumblebee nests come to a natural end - the males, female workers and old queen die leaving just the new queens alive. These queens feed up and go into…
8/12

…#hibernation (some for as long as 9 months!). They will dig their own hibernaculum usually in loose well drained soil on a north-facing bank (banks are less likely to flood and north-facing means that they are less likely to emerge too early due to unseasonable sunny…
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…days heating the soil over the winter). They will dig down about 4/5 inches into the soil and when comfortable enter a dormant state. During hibernation glycerol in the #bumblebee body acts like antifreeze preventing water in the bee body turning to ice. Other preferred…
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…#hibernation sites include inside tree hollows, under bark, beneath fallen #leaves, #compost heaps and even in plant pots - so be vigilant in your #garden!

In the UK and Ireland we are now increasingly seeing ‘winter active’ #bumblebees specifically Buff-tailed bumbles.
11/12

This phenomenon & how to help bees over the winter I will cover in a separate thread.
Hope this has helped increase your understanding of #bees a little.
Thread is a generalisation & there are variances between species and regions.
Please share among your crew.
#retweet 🙏🏼
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