In beekeeping, a winter cluster is a well-defined cluster of honey bees that forms inside a beehive when the air temperature dips below 54 to 57 °F (12 to 14 °C). Honey bees are but a few insects that survive the winter as a hive. As the outside air temperature decreases the winter cluster becomes tighter and more compact. The bees cling tightly together on the combs in the hive. The temperature within the winter cluster remains remarkably warm regardless of the outside air temperature. Larger clusters (basketball size) have a better chance for survival than smaller clusters (softball size). The winter cluster within the hive must move throughout the winter to reach the available honey stored in the combs.
Some die-off is expected during the winter. In extended cold weather periods, the incidence of Nosema disease increases and the cluster may weaken as many bees begin dying off.
Read more about Winter Cluster: Brood Nest
Famous quotes containing the words winter and/or cluster:
“There was never a revolution to equal it, and never a city more glorious than Petrograd, and for all that period of my life I lived another and braved the ice of winter and the summer flies in Vyborg while across my adopted country of the past, winds of the revolution blew their flame, and all of us suffered hunger while we drank at the wine of equality.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“In a sense the world dies every time a writer dies, because, if he is any good, he has been a wet nurse to humanity during his entire existence and has held earth close around him, like the little obstetrical toad that goes about with a cluster of eggs attached to his legs.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)