Storing Honey for Winter

The honey bee is unique in the insect world. It is the only insect in the temperate zone that remains alive and active throughout the year. Some insects, like the wasp, hornet, and yellow jacket, die off in cold weather. Other insects, like the lady beetles, find an area protected from the weather and hibernate. The honey bee, on the other hand, has evolved a social behavior that allows the colony to exploit the energy-rich nectar of the flowering plants. By the workers’ dividing the daily tasks of maintaining the colony and the queen’s egg laying eliminating the need for every bee to take the time and effort of reproducing offspring, a large workforce of foraging honey bees is available to harvest ample stores of nectar and pollen when they are available. From the nectar and pollen of flowers the honey bees make the food that they feed the brood. They also make honey from nectar and store the honey to feed the colony over the winter when blooming flowers are not available.

As the bees are producing their honey throughout the spring, summer, and fall, they spread the honey throughout the hive, away from the brood nest. As fall approaches, the bees consolidate the honey to an area close to the brood nest. In the photo, you can see that the bees have filled the green-colored frame of drone brood comb with honey. Here, they are taking advantage of the drone brood comb as a storage area when needed. The colonies have not been producing drones for a number of weeks. The resourceful honey bees use the same comb for different purposes at different times of the year. The task for the beekeeper is to insure that there is adequate honey for the colony to consume over the winter and that it is placed where the bees can access it in cold weather. That means that the honey should be above the cluster of bees in the hive.
--Richard