Winter Survival

[steve1958]

I have a thought and a question and would recommend comments.

Summer Bees tend to live less than 12 weeks,
It appears that they spend their lives working non-stop collecting food for the Hive. They work themselves to death.
However winter Bees live for many months, probably due to being in a state of semi-hibernation, resting.
So what is happening inside the Hive?
The Queen has stopped laying.
The Bees have filled the brood frames with food for the winter,
and should be resting.

However they are still working.

Question:
As the Bees are still collecting pollen, which mine are.
Does this mean they are shortening their lives (like the summer Bees).
If so what effect will this have on the Brood nest.
Will I still have some Bees left alive in Spring ?

 

[Heather]

Bet the queen still laying some..this is the problem and why varroa may be a bigger problem that usual. More places for varroa to breed, hide, feed and damage.

 

[Chrisfnvs]

Bet the queen still laying some..this is the problem and why varroa may be a bigger problem that usual. More places for varroa to breed, hide, feed and damage.

chris

 

[Poly Hive]

And be aware of the danger of food shortages.

PH

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Some would say that its rearing brood that really shortens a bee's life - think of when you have a colony with an unmated queen. so if there's less brood to rear they won't knacker themselves so quockly

 

[oliver90owner]

Summer Bees tend to live less than 12 weeks

Probably little over half that.

They work themselves to death.

Effectively, yes.

probably due to being in a state of semi-hibernation, resting.

Partly, but mostly the bees not 'aging' is due to not feeding (m)any brood. Any new brood emerging shortly will not 'age' either.

So, those new bees will be around in Spring to feed the first brood cycle (provided there is a critical mas of bees in the cluster). At present a lot of the bees will still be in the hive, keeping it warm, but, yes, there may be a late attrition of foragers going on now. Colonies will normally cope with this.

There may be more dead-outs than normal, but I have not a clue, personally. There again, the winter may not be a very long one, effectively, and brooding might start early, removing the problem of the old bees dying early - and replacing it with an increased risk of Spring starvation.

Whether you will have bees alive in any hive for next season is always a lottery. All we can do is assist them as much as possible to achieve their target of survival. The rest is up to them.

RAB

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

woohoo! my answer was similar to RAB's does that mean I'm almost a grown up beekeeper now

 

[Hombre]

It possibly means that your acerbic sense of wit is maturing too . . . ha ha.

Be afraid, very afraid . . You could do a lot worse and be a bee hugger though.

 

[Andy Duff]

In summer the bees can be out foraging for 12 hours a day, making numerous flights of a couple of miles. At the moment mine seem to be out for 6 hours a day so presumably they are doing a lot less work outside the hive.

 

[steve1958]

Food for thought.
And more to worry about.

However I feel some reassurance in all your comments

I am even more pleased that I managed to treat all the Hives for Varroa,
and will definately be using the Oxalic acid in December (unless they are all out flying still)

 

[drstitson]

with all the comments above

re lifespan - any brood reared now will/should replace the losses due to their rearing.

re activity - not a problem re lifespan BUT as many know is causing problems for stores NOW with hives needing 1kg+ of fondant a week. likewise spring starvation may be an issue.

re varroa - extended brood rearing such as we have had due to the unseasonably mild weather will be allowing varroa to increase. for many thymol treatments finished over 6 weeks ago - enough time for another 2 full brood cycles. many will be considering using a miticide and/or winter oxalic.

 

[Finman]

.
You have not read wht are wintering bees?

They have a specal pfysiology to longlive

- protein content is high/fatbody
- they have not feeded larvae
- they are not old foragers

All which had feeded larvae will die.

Those hives which rear brood over winter, will be in worse condition than rested bees.

Yes in UK. If our hives rear brood over winter, they will be dead in December.

 

[Finman]

.
Altered Physiology in Worker Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae)
Infested with the Mite Varroa destructor (Acari: Varroidae):
A Factor in Colony Loss During Overwintering?
GRO V. AMDAM,1, 2 KLAUS HARTFELDER,3 KARI NORBERG,2 ARNE HAGEN,2
AND STIG W. OMHOLT2
J. Econ. Entomol. 97(3): 741Ð747 (2004)
ABSTRACT Theectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor (Anderson&Trueman) is the most destructive
pest of the honey bee, Apis mellifera L., in Europe and the United States. In temperate zones, the main
losses of colonies from the mites occur during colony overwintering.

To obtain a deeper knowledge
of this phenomenon, we studied the mitesÕ impact on the vitellogenin titer, the total protein stores in
the hemolymph, the hemocyte characteristics, and the ecdysteroid titer of adult honey bees. These
physiological characteristics are indicators of long-time survival and endocrine function, and we show
that they change if bees have been infested by mites during the pupal stage.

Compared with noninfested workers, adult bees infested as pupae do not fully develop physiological features typical of long-lived wintering bees. Management procedures designed to kill V. destructor in late autumn may thus fail to prevent losses of colonies because many of the adult bees are no longer able to survive until spring. Beekeepers in temperate climates should therefore combine late autumn management strategies with treatment protocols that keep the mite population at low levels before and during the period when the winter bees emerge.

http://zulu.fmrp.usp.br/beelab/beelab/publicacao/amdam_etal2004

.

 

[Finman]

.
Accepted 19 September 2009
SUMMARY
Honeybee (Apis mellifera) society is characterized by a helper caste of essentially sterile female bees called workers. Workers show striking changes in lifespan that correlate with changes in colony demography. When rearing sibling sisters (brood), workers survive for 3–6 weeks.

When brood rearing declines, worker lifespan is 20 weeks or longer. Insects can survive unfavorable periods on endogenous stores of protein and lipid. The glyco-lipoprotein vitellogenin extends worker bee lifespan by functioning in free radical defense, immunity and behavioral control. Workers use vitellogenin in brood food synthesis, and the metabolic cost of brood rearing (nurse load) may consume vitellogenin stores and reduce worker longevity. Yet, in addition to consuming resources, brood secretes a primer pheromone that affects worker physiology and behavior. Odors and odor perception can influence invertebrate longevity but it is unknown whether brood pheromone modulates vitellogenin stores and survival. We address this question with a 2-factorial experiment where 12 colonies are exposed to combinations of absence vs presence of brood and brood pheromone. Over an age-course of 24 days, we monitor the amount of vitellogenin stored in
workers’ fat body (adipose tissue). Thereafter, we track colony survival for 200 days. We demonstrate that brood rearing reduces worker vitellogenin stores and colony long-term survival. Yet also, we establish that the effects can result solely from exposure to brood pheromone. These findings indicate that molecular systems of extreme lifespan regulation are integrated with the
sensory system of honeybees to respond to variation in a primer pheromone secreted from larvae.
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/212/23/3795.full.pdf

 

[drstitson]

"You have not read what are wintering bees? They have a special physiology to longlive
- protein content is high/fatbody
- they have not feeded larvae
- they are not old foragers"

Finman - whilst i agree with the above in essence the evidence points to winter bees being equivalent to young nurse bees ie NOT particularly special. Nurse bees aren't specially made from august onwards; there is no feed regimen for winter larvae. they are just the result of the declining brood rearing going on in the hive during the late summer/early autumn. The longevity of the winter bees is potentially upto 6 months vs the normal average of 6 weeks in season BUT that is governed purely by when brood rearing starts again in earnest SO potentially whilst a bee that emerges on 1st september may survive until end of feb, one that emerges on 1st october may only survive until mid march and so on.

 

[mbc]

Its not quite all about feeding brood = shorter life.
If you think about poor weather in the spring and summer causing congestion and increasing swarming its obvious that the "pileing up" of workers occurs due to them living longer because they're not dieing from hard work.

 

[drstitson]

"Its not quite all about feeding brood = shorter life.
If you think about poor weather in the spring and summer causing congestion and increasing swarming its obvious that the "pileing up" of workers occurs due to them living longer because they're not dieing from hard work."

sorry but have to disagree.

the scientific evidence from various sources confirms that worker lifespan is intimately associated with brood rearing.

on the second point - i'm sure many here will confirm that in fact the good early spring weather was the cause of early swarming. Later swarming was probably due poor mating in late spring/early summer ie supercedure swarms or starvation swarms or finally, overcrowding due to combined feeding and brood rearing in the mild autumn leading to late swarms.

 

[Finman]

"the scientific evidence from various sources confirms that worker lifespan is intimately associated with brood rearing.

.

So it goes and opinions are not needed.

Once I had a big hive. They had all emerged in July and their virging queen had not succeeded to mate during August. Weathers were rainy.
Practically the hive had no winterbees, I thought.

However the hive wintered normally and It did not loose bees more than normal. It seems that fvery few workers feeded larvae in late summer and that is why summer bees wintered.


It has researched that if you try to rear winter bees in Autumn, the hive will not have more bees in cluster than the hive which stopped brood rearing weeks earlier.
.

 

[drstitson]

"It has researched that if you try to rear winter bees in Autumn, the hive will not have more bees in cluster than the hive which stopped brood rearing weeks earlier"

precisely - any extra brood raised in our warm october will simply be replacing the workers worn out in doing so (and forced to exit the winter/nurse program).

 

[alanf]

"It has researched that if you try to rear winter bees in Autumn, the hive will not have more bees in cluster than the hive which stopped brood rearing weeks earlier"

precisely - any extra brood raised in our warm october will simply be replacing the workers worn out in doing so (and forced to exit the winter/nurse program).

I guess the danger is that a sudden turn to colder weather could chill a batch of brood. You might be left with a substantial proportion of the adult bees who had been nurse bees so they had reduced life expectancy but a missing generation of viable brood to replace them.