Honey bees face a unique challenge during the colder months. Unlike many insects that hibernate, the honey bee colony remains active throughout winter, relying entirely on stored food to survive. Worker bees form a tight, spherical cluster to generate and conserve heat instead of foraging for new resources. Maintaining this warmth requires a constant supply of energy, meaning the colony must continuously consume its accumulated stores until warmer weather returns.
The Primary Winter Diet: Stored Honey
The vast majority of the honey bee’s winter diet consists of honey, a dense source of carbohydrates that serves as the colony’s fuel. Worker bees metabolize this stored honey to power the muscle activity needed for thermoregulation. Inside the hive, the bees form a “winter ball” and generate heat by rapidly vibrating their flight muscles without moving their wings, functioning as a collective furnace.
The core of this cluster is actively heated, maintained around 92 to 95°F when the queen is laying eggs, or around 68°F in a broodless state. Honey provides the caloric energy necessary to sustain this high metabolic rate, particularly for the bees on the outer layer who insulate the cluster. As the bees consume the honey, the cluster must slowly move across the comb, migrating toward new stores. This movement is critical, as the cluster can starve even with honey nearby if the temperature is too low for the bees to break formation. The quantity and quality of these capped honey stores are the most important factor determining the colony’s ability to survive the extended winter.
The Role of Pollen Reserves
While honey provides energy for heat, stored pollen, often called “bee bread,” supplies the colony with protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals. Worker bees create bee bread by mixing collected pollen with nectar and glandular secretions, packing it into cells. Here, it undergoes lactic acid fermentation, which breaks down the pollen’s outer shell and makes the nutrients more bioavailable.
Protein consumption is significantly reduced during the deepest part of winter when the queen limits or ceases egg-laying. The stored protein is primarily used to feed developing larvae, not adult worker bees. Consumption of bee bread increases dramatically only as the colony moves into late winter and the queen resumes brood production. Nurse bees consume this protein-rich food to secrete the royal jelly necessary for feeding the young larvae, ensuring the colony has sufficient stores to rear the first generations of new bees before fresh pollen is available.
When Natural Stores Are Insufficient: Supplemental Feeding
When a colony’s natural honey reserves are insufficient, beekeepers must provide supplemental food to prevent starvation. Emergency feeding during the cold season uses solid forms of sugar, such as fondant, sugar bricks, or candy boards. Fondant is a creamy, hard sugar paste, while sugar bricks and candy boards are blocks of granulated sugar hardened with liquid.
These solid feeds are placed directly above the winter cluster, allowing the bees to access the sugar without breaking formation. The moisture produced by the bees’ respiration is sufficient to soften the hard sugar, making it consumable. Liquid sugar syrup is avoided in deep winter because cold temperatures prevent effective consumption (bees will not readily take syrup below about 50°F). Liquid feed also introduces excess moisture into the hive, which is detrimental to the colony’s health and can lead to fermentation.
In late winter, beekeepers may introduce a protein source in the form of pollen patties to stimulate early brood production. These high-protein supplements encourage nurse bees to begin feeding larvae sooner. This helps the colony build its population in anticipation of the spring nectar flow, bridging the resource gap between fall and spring foraging.