Do bees really hibernate? (1 Viewer)

Are there any bee people here? Whilst watching a blue tit on our mahonia yesterday I was amazed to see what appeared to be a bumble bee going from flower to flower on the mahonia.

I always thought that many bees died in the winter and the rest hibernated, is this right? or do they come out, like squirrels when the weather is mild and then go back to hibernation again? or do they not really hibernate at all, and I've been labouring under a delusion for years?

I've always thought that they hibernate...or rather, the queens do! Perhaps the weather has been a bit mildser than normal and so has awakened this particular queen?
Not sure if we have any bee experts on here...apart from Harry Eales! Why not send him a PM?
I'll just have a quick look in my New Naturalist book about Bumble Bees...might say something there!

GILL

Mmm...doesn't really quote any instances of queens being seen on the wing in the middle of winter..what it does say, in two seperate sections is...

''In spring when the weather is becoming warmer and the early flowers have opened, the first queen bumblebees appear,having crawled from their winter quarters after seven or eight months' rest. Queens of the different species appear at different times in spring. One of the very earliest, which usually emerges from hibernation in March, is Bombus pratorum, a small bee with a reddishh tip to her abdomen.''
...''Although we do not know for certain why the queens of some species appear so much earlier than those of others, it seems probable that the earlier ones do not require such high environmental temperatures to arouse them from the comatose state in which they have spent the winter.''
...''Although a queen bumblebee may live for a little over a year, she spends seven or eight months of this time hibernating in a sheltered place...''
Not much else really...my copy of book was written in 1968 (second edition) so perhaps a bitmore has been found out since...especially as our winters have been getting a lot milder over the past few years!
I'm sure SOMEBODY will come up with an answer!

GILL

No answer, except that I've regularly made same observation. I saw a number of Queen Bumbles bees on Jan 1st this year! In recent days I've seen Queens (on Mahonia as well) and small bumble bees also.
On a related note, one of the wasps nests in garden is still quite active. I'm seeing a lot of Queen wasps about and know the where abouts of many that are hibernating as well.

Something that I've never experienced before in my 25+years of farming is that everytime I'm working the tractor, queen wasps appear inside. Each time I let them fly out, and yet I've gone through the same process repeatedly during the past 3 weeks or so, letting out as many as 4 at a time.
It was a bumber year for wasps and they are still turning up in my moth traps and up to last week some of them were attacking the moths in the trap.