Bees need a cold spell

Can anyone point me to the science that says that bees benefit from or biologically need to be cold in the winter?
Thanks

Try searching in 'Google Scholar'.

Itchy said:

Can anyone point me to the science that says that bees benefit from or biologically need to be cold in the winter?
Thanks

Click to expand...

Do you mean a cold nest temperature or a cold ambient?
I ve found neither so far. I would be very interested in reading some.

Cold nest temp in cold ambient. I'm curious as to where the belief that "it's good for them to be cold" or "If they can survive the winter in a standard box, they must be good stock" has any scientific basis. I thought there must be something as it seems to be very popular.

None?

douple

Itchy said:

Can anyone point me to the science that says that bees benefit from or biologically need to be cold in the winter?
Thanks

Click to expand...

One who asks that questions does not know what is European honeybee Apis mellifera.

It is a creature which has lived naturally from South Africa to North Circle.

Honeybee stores honey for unfavorable season, when it can not forage from nature. Nature is in a rest period ja there are no flowers. Rest period can be too hot and dry and plants are wilted. Wax and honey stores are the reasons why human started to nurse bees.

There are huge number of species which do not store food for winter.

In Europe cold season is called winter and plants are wintering even if bees do not. Question is not about spell, it is cold period of year. In Finland winter period, when plants do not bloom, is 8 months long. (Sept to April). In many places summer is so hot and dry that flowers keep rest period. and bloom in winter.

On Africa continent dry season is common and some bee strains move from area to area to avoid starving.

What is special to European honeybee is that it makes its nest into cavity. So colony can control heat or the hive and it is safe place to live. If we look Asian honey bee, Apis cerana, it prefer open place to make combs and only minority makes nest into cavity. Other Apis species make one big comb and move place to avoid rain season or such.

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Apis cerana distribution

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Apis_cerana_distribution_map.svg

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Thanks Finman