A honeybee hive is made up of one queen bee, a few drone bees, and thousands of worker bees (Knoll et al., 2020). It is the queen's job to have lots of bee babies, and it is the worker bees’ jobs to collect pollen and nectar, make honey and beeswax, and take care of the queen and her babies. And the drone bees only job is to stay inside the hive to protect the queen (“Life in a Hive,” n.d.).

Worker bees have an easy time doing their many jobs in the spring and summer since the beehive stays warm and there are plenty of flowers. But, in fall or winter, when the temperature drops below 10℃,  it is harder to be a bee (Hogeback, 2016). Like many insects, bees only live a short amount of time, usually about six weeks, but queen bees can live up to 4 years, so the hive must make a plan to help the queen bee stay alive all through the winter  (“Life in a Hive,” n.d.).

At the end of summer, special winter bees are born. These are like regular worker bees but much plumper, and they can live all winter, sometimes up to 8 months (Knoll et al., 2020). (A note for older students: Knoll et al. (2020) attribute this to elevated levels of the protein vitellogenin). 

From October to March, the queen bee stays in the middle of the hive, which is the warmest. The winter bees kick out the drone bees so they can focus on protecting the queen and surviving the winter (“Life in a Hive,” n.d.). Then, all the winter bees surround the queen to create a ball or cluster to warm the hive (Knoll et al., 2020; Hogeback, 2016). The cluster of bees is always moving. They walk around the queen, dance their bodies to make heat, and fan their wings to push the hot air around. The inside where the queen stays can sometimes be 35℃ (Hogeback, 2016). The bees only stop moving to eat the honey they have stored (Knoll et al., 2020). The bee colony will stay like this inside the hive until it is warm enough to leave again.