Honey Bee In Snow - Apis mellifera

I just found a January scout, too

The warmest day in weeks in Philadelphia - the sun is out and it's almost up to 45 degrees - but I was still surprised to see a honeybee on the office windowsill. It was stiff and motionless, but when I took it inside, warmed it up, and put a drop of water under its proboscis, it started to drink and became active again. It's crawling around in one of my insect containers right now.

I'm trying to decide if I should post it for a January data point in PA; it wouldn't be as interesting a photo as yours in snow, and there are so many honeybees on BG. I like data points, though, and if it weren't for this post I wouldn't know about honeybees in winter at all!

… Abigail Parker, 15 January, 2010 - 1:39pm

Honey bees in January

A few years ago (January 12, 2006) I saw a few honeybees at Penn's Landing in Philly in the middle of January; they were visiting some pansies that managed to be still in bloom. Never bothered posting that photo. After all there are honeybees in every state and province and they come out now and then even in winter months. (I must add that it was a lousy photo because I wasn't trying too hard).

… Beatriz Moisset, 15 January, 2010 - 2:34pm

The plot thickens

My bee was alive until a few hours ago, but now it's dead with a small hole in the thorax, just above the left forewing. Could it have been parasitized? I don't see any other critters, alive or dead, in the jar.

I'll photograph the bee in a while, but I'm leaving it alone for a while to see if something does come out.

… Abigail Parker, 16 January, 2010 - 5:59pm

Winter data is fascinating...

I often take on the task of attempting to go through the Honey Bee section and selectively frass some images so that the number of posts doesn't become overwhelming. However, so long as the picture is of decent quality, I always attempt to preserve posts with interesting data over those with solely aesthetic qualities. Not all editors are in agreement with me on this issue, but I think that there is definitely as much value to be had in recording anatomical variation, interesting behavior, or seasonal data as there is in retaining yet another beautiful, high-resolution photo.

… Harsi S. Parker, 15 January, 2010 - 1:49pm

my thoughts exactly!

Over in Coccinellidae, I've been hanging onto data points as much as possible. If the image is low-quality but the date/location are important, I just uncheck "representative" and hope no one calls me on it :-)

If I hadn't had the flu recently, I'd be out there searching for more insects today. It's a balmy 52 degrees!

… Abigail Parker, 15 January, 2010 - 2:02pm

Thank You, Moved

Thanks for the tips John. I came across this in a small, north-facing canyon late in the day around 1600. The tree (Gambel's Oak (?))is large by modern-day AZ standards. It seemed that it was curtains for any bee falling to the snow. I don't know what sustenance they would find at this point and spring is a long time off but I guess they know what they're doing.

Moved from ID Request.

… David Moll, 5 January, 2010 - 11:22am

Scouting

See Winter World by Bernd Heinrich. He also has a book on insects(1) that may say more.

There are 100,000 bees in the hive. The hive can afford to send 100 scouts every sunny or warm day during winter. Most of them will freeze. Some of them will find food, and earlier than if the hive waited for a long stretch of warm weather to know spring had arrived for good.

… John F. Carr, 5 January, 2010 - 7:23am

Praise for "Winter World"

I excitedly clicked on this post, thinking I would be able to reference fascinating information I recently learned after reading Bernd Heinrich's book, but John already beat me to it! For anyone that is curious about how insects (and other animals) prepare, adapt and cope with freezing temperatures, I highly recommend that you purchase this excellent book. I just added a link here in the Books section.

(It looks like Amazon is selling the paperback version for a measly 6 bucks! For some reason, the link generated to Amazon on my Books submission, doesn't take you to the right page. Here's that link:
http://www.amazon.com/Winter-World-Ingenuity-Animal-Survival/dp/B002WTC94C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262808297&sr=8-1

… Harsi S. Parker, 6 January, 2010 - 2:25pm

Just Ordered My Copy

Great time of year for this. Should finish my current read by the time it arrives. Anyone that inspired by Golden-crowned Kinglet has to have something on the ball.

Many years ago, I checked Bumblebee Economics out of a library; the recent edition is probably quite different.

… David Moll, 15 January, 2010 - 6:42pm

Ditto

That makes two of us. John beat both of us.

… Beatriz Moisset, 7 January, 2010 - 4:55pm