What happens to bees in winter? Detailed answer

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What happens to bees in winter? Detailed answer

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What happens to bees in winter?

There are thousands of different varieties of bees, so the habits and lifestyle of different species vary greatly. But we are mainly interested in two things about bees: how they produce honey and how "social" bees organize their lives.

In the process of honey production, the bee flies from flower to flower, drinking nectar, which is then carried home in a honey bag, which is a sac-like extension of the digestive tract, located in front of the stomach, but separate from it. The first stage of the transformation of nectar into honey occurs just in the honey bag, where the sugar contained in the nectar undergoes chemical transformations.

Before the nectar turns into honey, the bees evaporate most of the water out of it. Honey stored in the so-called "honey pots" by bumblebees is almost as liquid as nectar and sours quickly. But the honey stored by honey bees in honeycombs is so dried up that it can be stored almost forever. Well, what about in winter? In temperate climates, young bumblebee queens spend the winter in burrows dug in dry sandbanks or other suitable locations.

The queen is the only member of the colony that survives the winter, and she forms a new colony in the spring. Honey bees are happier. They are able to adapt to all climatic extremes. Their social organization is so efficient and complex that it can be compared with human society. The worker bees maintain the temperature in the hive with great precision (approximately 34°C where the honey bees develop).

In winter, the bees do not allow the temperature to drop below 7 °C. The stored honey is used by the bees as a fuel, consuming which they release the heat necessary to maintain a normal temperature.

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What stars are called red giants and what is their average density?

Red giants are huge cold stars. They exceed the Sun in diameter by tens and hundreds of times, and in mass - from 1,5 to 15 (supergiants - up to 50) times. Their surface temperature is 3-4 thousand degrees Kelvin.

Red giants have a complex internal structure. Their core is rich in helium with a small admixture of heavy elements, but is not a source of nuclear energy, since nuclear reactions do not occur in it. The density of matter in the core of a red giant is so high that its structure is close to that of a white dwarf. A thin energy-releasing layer is located around the core, where the thermonuclear reactions of converting hydrogen into helium take place. This is followed by a very extended shell, which occupies about 90 percent of the radius of the star. This shell contains more than half of the mass of the red giant.

Despite the high density in the core, the average density of a red giant is much lower than the solar one and, as a rule, does not exceed one milligram per cubic centimeter. Thus, the average density of the red supergiant Betelgeuse is only six ten-thousandths of a milligram per cubic centimeter, or 1/2000 of the density of air at normal atmospheric pressure!

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