Winter honey bees are quite different from summer bees, not just their behaviour but also their physiology. A bit like me putting on an extra layer of fat over the winter, bees increase their fat body cells. These cells contain vitellogenin which are a store of energy and nutrients to help the worker bee survive overwinter without using up too much stored honey or bee bread. Summer bees typically live for up 42 days, or four to six weeks. They work themselves to death maintaining the colony and collecting the honey harvest for winter stores; this allows winter bees to work less hard and live for four to six months. These bees are female worker bees; the other female in the hive, the queen, will continue for several years until she is replaced with a newer more productive queen. The boys or drones live for up to two months but are usually kicked out of the hive in late autumn unless it is a mild winter.
Honey bees have been perfecting this lifestyle for 25 million years, so as long as their beekeeper has prepared them for winter by ensuring they have stores and the varroa mites are under control they will likely survive until spring. The other bees in Aotearoa have different lifestyles, they are mostly solitary bees rather than social. For them a mated queen emerges from solitary hibernation in the spring and then starts to build a nest; this stage progresses quite slowly as it is just her doing the mahi. She builds individual cells, lays an egg in each and after provisioning with honey and pollen, caps them. She continues to build up the colony until the workers start to emerge who then help to forage and build cells; the colony then starts to grow exponentially throughout spring and summer. The queen will then start to produce drones and then gynes (fertile females). The gynes mate and then go and hibernate alone. The original nest usually dies out over winter and in the spring the hibernating queens awaken and start the cycle again. This process is broadly followed by the 29 species of native bees in New Zealand, as well as bumblebees and wasps.
There are two things that we can do to help these over-wintering insects. The first is to ensure that they have somewhere to hibernate undisturbed over winter. Bare banks, under hedges, unkempt areas of the garden, rotten logs are ideal places for these insects to burrow into until they emerge in early spring. Providing these places is great but leaving them undisturbed is very important. Lawns, weed matting and bark cover can be like a desert to these insects. The other thing that you could do is to provide suitable plants that flower in late autumn and early spring. With these milder winters I have observed bumblebees in my garden in winter, they love the creeping rosemary and dwarf bottlebrush plants that flower all year round. Creating little niches for our flora and fauna to flourish helps to maintain our biodiversity and a healthier environment around New Zealand. What better way to understand more about the environment and bees than to learn how to be a beekeeper? Beekeeping courses usually start in the spring, so now is a good time to start planning. You could also join your local bee club to learn more.
Ken Brown; Beekeeping Tutor with Land Based Training Ltd. & President of Auckland Beekeepers Club
ken@ministryofbees.co.nz
