Winter bees

[Rurification]

Do bees raise brood all winter?   When they're following the stores through the hive, are they laying as well?  Or do winter bees live longer because they're not flying around gathering and they're basically in hibernation.  Sort of.

Inquiring minds want to know!

[FRAMEshift]

Do bees raise brood all winter?   When they're following the stores through the hive, are they laying as well?  Or do winter bees live longer because they're not flying around gathering and they're basically in hibernation.  Sort of.

Inquiring minds want to know!

Rurification, welcome to the Beemaster forum!   Your inquiring mind has come to the right place.

Bees usually raise brood intermittently through the winter.  You will see  small patches of worker brood in January and February before the spring build-up starts.  The exact timing varies with the weather, and this year the build-up has started earlier than usual.

Winter bees live longer, partly as you say because they are not wearing out their wings.  But winter bees are physiologically different from summer bees as well.  They are heavier and have more fat in their bodies.  Evolution has figured out that the winter bees will have to last longer since replacements are hard to come by in a long cold winter.  So these bees are designed to last 3, 4, or even 5 months under cold conditions.

[Finski]

.
On my global level all those hives will die if they rear brood on winter.
Now all hives have brood even if here is snow 30-50 cm on ground and at night temp is -10C.
.

[Rurification]

I love this forum!    Thanks for the information.

[bee-nuts]

different strains of honeybee winter better than others.  One of the reasons is bees that have adjusted to the local climate know when to slow brood production down or shut down altogether.  If you are in a cold climate brood rearing can kill a colony in the middle of winter becuase they can not keep it all warm in a cold spell and end up freezing to death.  In Wisconsin they raise very small batches of brood over the winter months. 

Winter bees are different than summer bees as stated.  They store fat bodies and such to be able to survive long strethces of cold and Im sure to help aid in raising brood in spring.  Much like a bear fatingin up for winter, winter bees faten up as well.  This is why it is so important that you have healthy bees being raised come fall or they will not survive.

We have had a very warm March here this year.  When it warmed up and set record high temperatures here I was able to open the colonies for a normal full inspection when normally I would be luckt to even take a peek under the inner cover.  My early march inspection showed 90% of colonies were not raiseing any brood at all or very very small batches.  However with the warm weather they starated raising brood and after three weeks of abnormal warm weather they have several frames of capped brood in each colony now.  I was very worried that a cold spell dipping near zero or even colder for a week would kill colonies thart would not be able to reach honey when stuck on brood but we have lucked out and by now I have large numbers of bees hatching and soon with have colonies that are four deeps full of bees.