As of: February 1, 2024, 5:14 p.m
By: Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss
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Mistress of five colonies: beekeeper Susanne Karner.
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Bees are there for their queen all year round.
In winter, however, special bees take on this task.
They ensure that the queen reaches spring.
Gelting
– They look after and care for their queen like hardly any other colony: bees.
In summer and winter they work to ensure the preservation of their species.
But especially in the cold season, certain bees ensure the survival of their queen, says Susanne Karner, a beekeeper from Gelting - she opens a hive for our newspaper.
Each animal has its own task
To ensure that the coexistence of around 60,000 animals does not end in chaos, each animal has its task: the queen ensures survival - and lays eggs.
Drones, i.e. the males in the colony, look for queens from other colonies to mate with.
The workers, in turn, are responsible for feeding the larvae and the queen and help build the honeycombs.
“It’s not for nothing that they say they are as busy as bees,” says Karner.
However, the hard and strenuous work takes its toll.
“They only have a life expectancy of four to five weeks.” Things are different for their sisters, the “winter bees”.
Since they don't have to swarm out to get food, they have larger energy reserves and can therefore survive for up to six months.
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Bees heat the hive to around 30 degrees in winter
Nevertheless, the animals – the colony has shrunk to around 20,000 bees during the cold season – have an important task: “They have to eat fat and are basically – as a beekeeper friend describes it – little, fat girls.
Their job is to produce food for the queen and to keep her warm.” The lower temperature limit is twelve degrees; if it falls any further, it becomes dangerous.
So the insects “close up around the queen in a cluster with alternating positions and occasionally heat the hive to around 30 degrees,” explains Karner.
The bees generate heat through a kind of trembling of the muscles.
“That must be incredibly exhausting.
After 15 minutes, a winter bee is completely exhausted and tired,” explains the experienced breeder.
To ensure enough energy, Karner feeds dough in the fall and early winter.
“Whatever honey I take from the animals, I have to give it back to them in one way or another.”
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Additional food helps during the cold season
She places the additional food within easy reach in the hive.
Short distances mean less energy consumption.
Otherwise, Karner leaves her colonies alone over the winter - with one exception: “I open the hives just before Christmas.” However, there are no Christmas presents.
“It is the only period without brooding and is therefore ideal to carry out treatment with oxalic acid against the dreaded Varroa mite.” The pest is considered one of the main reasons for the death of bee colonies.
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