How much honey does a hive need to overwinter?

[Hivemaker.]

Bees lived on honey for 35 million years or so

120 million years, with some now believing it could in fact be up to 220 million years.

 

[Michael Palmer]

Small and low on resources, high on return, i like small colonies for these uses.

Me too Pete. And some make honey no matter how hard I try to keep them small.

 

[Thymallus]

120 million years, with some now believing it could in fact be up to 220 million years.

Wonder what 220million year old honey would taste like....and how much for a jar!

 

[B+.]

Wonder what 220million year old honey would taste like....and how much for a jar!

If you need to ask, you can't afford it

 

[madasafish]

Wonder what 220million year old honey would taste like....and how much for a jar!

I have some. A jar is £500,000 but on special offer this week - two for the price of one. And double Nectar points.

 

[Thymallus]

Me thinks tis a fast one you are trying to pull
....Bit of a give away it being in one of those new fangled inventions.....a jar.....
Honey that old it would have been stored in an empty dinosaur egg!

 

[pargyle]

120 million years, with some now believing it could in fact be up to 220 million years.

Actually - what I said was that bees have lived on honey for 35 million years - the earlier bees fossils that have been found are thought to be ancestors of the honeybee and an evolution from hunting wasps which were around much earlier as you say. There's fossil evidence of honeycomb from between 22 million and 35 million years ago sealed in some Dominican Amber but it is thought that this may not be from bees.

So ... whilst I accept that there is fossil evidence of bee-like insects from before 35 million years I tend to quote the figure 35 million as there is fossil evidence of bees 'as we know them now' and living on honey (samples of pollen and nectar have been found in amber preserved bees from that time). Fossils of the true Apis type were first discovered in the Lower Miocene (22 to 25 million years ago) of Western Germany.

So ... whilst I stand corrected in some respects ...until such time as we have fossil evidence of actual honeybees from before that time I will continue to quote 35 million as a more realistic figure for honeybee origins. But - the fact remains - it's a long time on either figure !!

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

LOL...or taking out surplus honey combs and giving empty combs for extra laying space.

Or dealing with early swarms.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I think the people who talk about overwintering on single broods come fresh from heather moors where the bees have been able to forage on heather throughout August/Spetember. Our bees haven't had a decent feed since July

No ivy?

 

[B+.]

No ivy?

Lots of it...all in tight bud

 

[madasafish]

Lots of it...all in tight bud

Same here - about a month later than last year..

 

[oliver90owner]

Ivy only just bursting here, these last few days.

Honeybees would have evolved along with flowering plants - so sexual reproduction rather than spores like ferns. So a symbiotic relationship developed, of sorts - well a "you scrub my stamens and stigmas while you get fed". Ancestors back to around 250 million years in the fossil record.