The Deepest Part of Winter
The stretch of winter without bees can feel interminable. We have readied our colonies for the long lean months of cold, and left them to do what they do. And, it’s not yet time to check them for spring build up. At first, a satisfaction with the quietude provides a much needed reprieve from the physical labor of bees and other outdoor work. Attention turns to reading, contemplating and lusting over a slew of arriving catalogues with beekeeping equipment and botanical offerings.
Then, after that novelty wears off, an aching creeps in… A tender longing for the sight of sun on their wings, the intoxicating delicacy of wafting air and the sensational intimacy of nature resonates within, waiting for spring.
This is neither science nor religion…it is the deepest part of winter.
Winter Beekeeping Tasks
Turn Attention Inward
The deep cold of winter turns our beekeeping attention inward. We should consider the year just past and plan a course for the season ahead.
Add to Your Knowledge Base About Bees
Mid-February Brood-rearing
Plan for Feeding Your Bees.
Crunch Time for Hive Loss
Don't Feed Pollen Too Soon
Crunch Time for Hive Loss
In the Northeast, mid-February through the end of March is the critical time for hive loss. Brooding starts incrementally by mid-February, seemingly initiated by extended daylight, not warmer temperatures. Brood-rearing changes everything in an over-wintering colony as the internal dynamics shift into a higher metabolic state, not just for individual bees but also for the superorganism.
High brood-nest incubation temperatures require more “heater bees” to consume more food stores just as the hive’s supply is dwindling. Natural foraging is often in the distant future, and the threat of starvation/freezing is ever more tangible.
Expanding nursery kicks the colony into high metabolism.
Once there is an expanding nursery of spring brood to feed, winter bees begin their delayed physiological maturation, which has been on pause in a broodless colony, and kick-starts when brooding begins again. In short this means, the winter bees begin using up their vitellogenin (Vg) and stored fat bodies to create brood food, and tend the young, which transitions the long-lived bees towards the shorter lifespan of summer bees.
The hive population will plummet if more winter bees perish before spring bees can replace them. A tight winter cluster, with a low metabolic rate during the early part of the season, is transformed into a high-metabolic brood factory. The expanding brood, with its high nutritional demands and the diminishing mantel of protective bees around the cluster, promises a strong spring colony or the prospect of a colony that could perish.
As tenders of the hives, we can attune ourselves to this critical shift by understanding the dynamic timeline, observing the bees, and taking timely action. Feeding carbohydrates can provide a crucial lifeline until natural seasonal forage. Feeding pollen in mid-winter is generally not advisable, as it can spur the bees to create more brood than their supplies warrant, adding to their vulnerability.
Beekeepers are all happy to see bees flying on a warm day in January…and see poop on the snow, but we aren’t there yet. Seeing our bees flying at the beginning of April is the goal we are working towards.
Reframing Nature/Nurture
A colony of Honey bees (Apis mellifera) is recognized as a superorganism. As eusocial insects, Honey bees evolved from solitary bees and wasps millennia ago. Their advanced social structure, including their communication/language skills and communal lives over multiple generations, is close to human societal structure.
The study of the societal functioning of these unique creatures has advanced in the past 30 - 50 years due to advancements in technology, visionary investigations by multifaceted thinkers looking for answers to complex questions, and, of course, a multitude of grad students put to tasks.
Gene E Robinson, from the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is a prime example of those who study the Honey bee for insights into human behavior and society. Robinson has been the Institute for Genomic Biology Director since 2001. He was in a leadership role for the Honeybee Genome Sequencing Consortium, which completed sequencing the Honey bee genome in 2006. Robinson states, “The first discovery in the science of genomics is that all organisms are playing with the same deck of cards, that is, all organisms share many genes.”
The Interdisciplinary Study of "Sociogenomics"
Robinson’s in-depth work in the Robinson Lab is particularly relevant to broadening an understanding of human behavior through a lens of what he has coined “Sociogenomics.” This avenue of interdisciplinary study engages genomics, molecular biology, neuroscience, behavioral biology, and evolutionary biology, as well as a deep interest in reframing “Nature versus Nurture.”
For Robinson, “The significant discovery is that the gene expression in the brain is very sensitive to environmental conditions, particularly social stimuli. This changes how we understand the regulation of behavior. what this means is we can reframe nature/nurture. It’s not genes and the environment, it’s that both nature and nurture act on the genome, just at different time scales.
A better way to see this is that there are long-term inherited changes and influences on the genome, which is what we call nature, and then short-term environmental influences on the genome, which is what we call nurture.”
A new subsidiary science called Epigenetics looks at the biological mechanisms of how environmental factors and social behavior change gene activity without altering the DNA. Epi is a prefix that comes from Greek meaning "above," “upon,” and “over.” Simplistically explained: genes within DNA do not change structure, although individual genes can be turned off or on depending on outside influences.
This work has the potential to actively change the approach to human behavioral development and the social/environmental influences that affect it.
Relevance to Beekeeping Practice
Why should a beekeeper care about any of this regarding relevance to an individual’s beekeeping practice?
The most fundamental relevance to beekeeping practice is the interactions between the beekeeper and the bees they are tending. In the nurture paradigm, it seems likely that if a beekeeper works their bees in a decidedly aggressive fashion, squishing bees between boxes without much regard for bee lives, the bees will learn to be on defense against the intruder. If tending hives is a gentle affair over time, the bees will develop a more trusting demeanor and be easier to work over multiple generations.
Of course, there are certainly aggressive bees out there with mean temperaments that are not quelled by gentle interaction. This behavior leans into the long-term nature paradigm, which has been ingrained in some bees' gene expression.
An additional relevance of this query for beekeepers is a fascination with the idea that the study of honeybees is invaluable in expanding the scientific understanding of the influence of environment and social interaction on all behavior.
Balancing Act of Nature/Nurture
The growing Sociogenomic evidence of the dynamic balancing act of Nature/Nurture in Robinson’s lifework can illuminate how human society raises its young, how nurturing—or lack of it—can influence behavior at any age, and how positive/negative communal activity can develop exponentially.
It makes so much sense. This perspective begins to focus on elements of human nature that can be implemented through positive interactive change. It provides a wealth of ways to lift up members of our human society, contemplate our relationships with other creatures on the earth, and help all our lives thrive.
Even with the obvious comparisons, human society is infinitely more complicated than Honey bee society. Scientific data is also not the be-all and end-all of understanding; however, it is a big part of the puzzle.
The most significant difference between humans and Honey bees in communal life is that bees do not have egos. The ego infinitely complicates human society,
Enjoy the quiet of the winter season!
Learning new things is a great way to prepare for the bee season ahead.
Let's get together in person for a bit of socializing, food, and fun!
Join us at our upcoming Winter Cluster Meetup & Honey Exchange
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Citations & Links
Amdam GV, Fennern E, Havukainen H. Vitellogenin in honey bee behavior and lifespan. In: Galizia CG, Eisenhardt D, Giurfa M, editors. Honeybee neurobiology and behavior. Dordrecht: Springer; 2012. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2099-2_2
Robinson Lab. Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Available from: https://lab.igb.illinois.edu/robinson/
The Honeybee Genome Sequencing Consortium. Insights into social insects from the genome of the honeybee Apis mellifera. Nature. 2006;443:931–49. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05260
Robinson G. Gene Robinson on reframing nature vs. nurture [video]. YouTube. 2023. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oybmsJ17W4g
About the Author:
Grai St. Clair Rice
Grai has been a beekeeping educator since 2006. She teaches beekeeping classes, coaches beekeepers, does public presentations, writes about Honeybees and gardening for pollinators, and consults on landscape plantings.