Bumblebees in Winter

It is still winter, but some bumblebee queens have started coming out of hibernation already. While it is usually best to leave nature do its thing, what should you do if you find a bumblebee that looks like it needs some help?

In Ireland, any bumblebees you find this time of the year are queens. The female worker bees and male drones die in the autumn, leaving only queen bees to overwinter. Any queen that survives the winter will build a nest of her own and start a new colony in spring. Inside her she carries eggs, and stored sperm from when she mated in the autumn. She has all that is needed to start a new colony.

Irish Bumblebee queens hibernate in winter

To save energy, queen bumblebees hibernate in winter. They build a little nest or dig a burrow and spend the winter months there. She eats herself fat in the autumn and does not store honey in her nest like honeybees do. Sometimes queens come out of hibernation a little too early, before spring has really started. She could have been disturbed, her nest heated up from the sun so that she believed spring was here, or she could be hungry and low on energy. We often get a few weeks of lovely spring weather early in the year, followed by a cold snap.

Because of changes in the weather, the next few months are challenging for the Irish bumblebee queens. They may need a little help to make it through. But only a little!

Looking for energy

If you find a queen bumble sitting still on a rock or a plant, she is most likely trying to warm up so that she can fly off in search of food. She may be cold and wet, but do not be tempted to bring her inside to heat up. This will really make her think it is spring and she will become more active and use up her energy sooner. Instead, first spend some time observing her. If she is still for a few minutes without moving or flying off, you can defy nature and give her what she really needs. Energy.

A small drop of honey or sugar syrup will give her enough energy to either start her spring preparations or go back into hibernation until spring is really here. To feed her, place a drop of food in front of her or let her climb onto your finger or hand. Do not pick her up as she is very delicate. Offer your finger for her to climb onto and place a drop off food on the skin. She will stick out her tongue looking for food. Once she has found it, she will usually eat for a couple of minutes. She will then enjoy the heat of the skin for a little while, groom herself and fly off. Mission accomplished!

See our extensive range of raw Irish honey here.

Bumblebee mites

If you look carefully at the bumblebees, you might see that they sometimes carry small mites on their bodies. These mites are mostly harmless and are just hitching a ride to the new nest, where they will coexist with the bumblebees and eat pollen, wax, debris, and small insects. They don’t parasitise on the bees themselves. Usually, they don’t pose a problem for the queens either, but if you find a large number on a queen, you can gently brush some off her using a child’s paintbrush. You can see some mites on the picture of the bee on the finger. They are right behind her head. This bee also had mites under her wing but was able to fly off without any intervention.

Bumblebee queen with mites

Handling Bumblebees

Do not be afraid of getting stung. Bumblebees are gentle, and as the old bumblebee proverb goes ‘…never sting the hand that feeds you…’ Handle her gently too, and hopefully she will reward you with an abundance of beautiful buzzing bumblebees this summer!

Would you like to know what flowers are good for bees in the winter and spring? Check out the plants for bees section of our blog.

Did you know there are nearly 100 species of bees in Ireland? Only one of these are honeybees, the rest are Bumblebees and solitary bees. Find out more about our many Irish bumblebees here: Bumblebee Monitoring Scheme – National Biodiversity Data Centre (biodiversityireland.ie)

N.B. Some advocate not feeding bumblebees honey because of the risk of transmitting honeybee diseases which may be present in the honey to bumblebees. While it is true that it is not recommended to feed honey from other colonies to honeybees for this very reason, there is still a lot of research needed to back up this hypothesis for honeybee to bumblebee transmissions. The diseases that researchers are most concerned about are Nosema and Deformed Wing Virus, which are Honeybee diseases known to affect Bumblebees. However, it seems that feeding honey containing DWV pathogen to healthy Bumblebee larvae did not in fact lead to them developing the disease as adult. It is a really important field though, and I’m sure we will learn much more in years to come. If you want to be really cautious, then just stick to the sugar-water/ syrup for feeding ailing Bumblebees!

Read more about this fascinating topic here: Evidence for and against deformed wing virus spillover from honey bees to bumble bees: a reverse genetic analysis | Scientific Reports (nature.com)

Hanna Bäckmo

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