What exactly are honey bees doing inside the hive all winter? Following their recent discussion about condensing hives, Dr. Jim Tew and Anne Frey return to the fundamentals of wintering honey bees. They begin with the temptation to judge bee comfort by human standards. A cold wooden box may look miserable to us, but honey bees have evolved a remarkably effective system for surviving long periods of cold weather.

Anne and Jim explore how the winter cluster expands, contracts, moves upward through stored honey, and circulates bees between its warmer interior and colder outer shell. They also discuss elevated CO2 levels, insulation, and why observing the cluster without disturbing it remains difficult.

The conversation turns practical as they consider what beekeepers can still do once winter begins. Adding top insulation, supplying honey, and carefully timing oxalic acid treatments may still be possible, but opening a colony for major manipulation can cost bees and disrupt the cluster.

Jim and Anne also look at winter moisture, how bees access thick stored honey, cleansing flights, and what snow around a hive can reveal about colony activity.

Winter may look quiet from the outside, but inside the hive, the colony is anything but inactive.

______________________

Thanks to Betterbee for sponsoring today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com

We'd like to thank Vita Bee Health for supporting the podcast. Vita provides proven tools for controlling Varroa—from Apistan and Apiguard to the new VarroxSan extended-release oxalic acid strips—helping beekeepers keep stronger, healthier colonies.

Thanks to Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping, for their support of Honey Bee Obscura. Available in print and digital at www.beeculture.com

______________________

Honey Bee Obscura is brought to you by Growing Planet Media, LLC, the home of Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Music: Heart & Soul by Gyom, All We Know by Midway Music; Christmas Avenue by Immersive Music; original guitar music by Jeffrey Ott

Episode artwork created by Jeff Ott with ChatGPT by OpenAI. (Jim's regular cartoonist, John Martin, is on vacation and will be back!)

Copyright © 2026 by Growing Planet Media, LLC