I’ve never been afraid of American bees…they dont typically sting. The most aggressive is the carpenter bees with how they dive bomb us and burrow into our cedar-sided garage with huge holes. We have bumble bees, honey bees and carpenter bees. Unlike bumble bees that store the food they need inside their exoskeletons, honey bees build a pantry to store excess honey to sustain the entire colony throughout the winter. This is why they need to store whatever type of honey. They reduce their outdoor activities as fall gives way to winter, but they are still conscious in the hive, moving and eating until the weather allows them to leave the safety of their nests. As fall begins, they feed in order to get enough fat to last through the winter.īy the time the temperatures drop, each queen will find her own safe space where she will sleep away the chill and emerge in spring. When the new queens emerge, they go and mate. Now, she’s getting ready to pass on the species torch. Previously, she was just laying little helpers whose purpose was to carry pollen and nectar as food for the young and care for their siblings. In late summer, a bumble bee will lay the next generation of queens and drones. Who doesn’t like a good cuddle when the temperatures drop? Well, it would seem that the bumblebee doesn’t care too much for bundling together with its sisters or daughters during the winter months. Strong honey bee colonies would have bees that number in the tens of thousands, while bumblebees will only have a few hundred bees in a nest. The more they are, the more heat they generate. That is left to her daughters, the worker bees.Īs social insects, honeybees survive through the winter because they form clusters to keep each other warm. She doesn’t build combs, doesn’t clean up, doesn’t do laundry, or nurse the babies. The sole responsibility of the queen bee is to lay eggs. She has enough labor to take care of herself, her young, and the whole honey bee hive. When the old queen leaves with worker bees, the new queen isn’t left alone. She doesn’t travel without an entourage, which is what a swarm is.
The life of a honeybee queen is truly one of entitlement. She only has a few months to do this because she’ll be gone by winter to make way for some of her daughters to become queens.
This is when she delegates most of her homecare duties and focuses on laying the eggs. She builds cells to lay her eggs and cares for them until they are old enough to start caring for others. She’s a lone ranger who finds some good real estate and settles.
Bumblebees start off with just one queen.
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