The bee year: three timetables running at once
A honey bee colony, a bumblebee colony and a solitary bee are on three completely different annual schedules, and advice written for one is frequently wrong for the other two.
Three strategies, one landscape
A honey bee colony is a perennial superorganism. It survives winter as a cluster, shivering its flight muscles to hold over 30 °C at the core while the outside of the hive freezes, and it consumes roughly 20 to 25 kg of stored honey doing it. That is the entire reason honey exists in quantity: storing food only makes sense if you intend to be alive as a colony in February.
A bumblebee colony is annual. A queen founds it alone in spring, it peaks at a few dozen to a few hundred workers, it produces new queens and males in late summer, and then everything dies except those mated queens, each of whom hibernates alone in a hole in the ground.
A solitary bee — which is most bees, around ninety per cent of species — has no colony at all. A female emerges, mates, provisions cells with pollen for perhaps six weeks, and dies. The next generation stays sealed in the nest until the following year.
Spring: expansion outrunning the forage
Spring is not the season of plenty people assume — it is the season in which demand rises faster than supply. A honey bee colony can go from 10,000 to 50,000 bees in a few weeks, driven by day length rather than temperature, and every larva needs pollen. The classic starvation happens in April rather than January, because the colony is consuming faster than it can collect and a week of cold rain removes foraging entirely.
Meanwhile a bumblebee queen is doing all of it herself: foraging, laying and incubating, with no workers until the first brood matures. A cold fortnight with nothing in flower kills the whole prospective colony. This is why February and March forage matters out of proportion to its quantity.
Autumn: the season that decides the winter
In late autumn a honey bee colony rears a physiologically different worker. Winter bees carry elevated vitellogenin, a storage protein that lets them live four to six months rather than six weeks, and they are reared on the last good pollen of the year — which is why autumn pollen matters more than autumn nectar. Ivy, flowering from September to November, does most of that work in northern Europe.
The same ivy determines whether a new bumblebee queen builds enough fat to survive six months underground. And the solitary bees are already dead, leaving provisioned cells in hollow stems and bare soil — which is why an autumn tidy-up that cuts stems, clears litter and turns over soil destroys next year's bees invisibly.
Winter: awake, warm, and eating
Honey bees do not hibernate. The cluster stays awake and metabolically active all winter, restarts brood rearing in January, and flies on any day above about 10 °C. Bumblebee queens are underground. Solitary bees are sealed in cells as larvae or pre-pupae, waiting on a temperature cue that a warming climate is quietly shifting.
One genuine recent change is worth knowing: buff-tailed bumblebee colonies now overwinter actively in southern Britain and parts of western Europe, foraging on winter-flowering garden shrubs. That is new behaviour within living memory, driven by warmer cities and by what people plant in them.
The honey bee year as phases, not months
Beekeeping calendars are usually written for one place and read everywhere. The colony itself runs through a sequence that is the same wherever honey bees overwinter — stores carry it through the lean season, brood restarts, the population builds, it may swarm, a flow fills the comb, forage fails, it rears the bees that will carry it through the next lean season — but the dates move by weeks with altitude and latitude and by months between climates. HoneyHQ records the sequence and leaves the dates to local sources.
| Phase | The colony | What a beekeeper sees | Forage | The risk that decides it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Late winter | Still clustering in cold weather, but the queen has resumed laying. A colony rearing brood holds the brood nest at brood temperature, so it burns stores faster than one that is only keeping warm. | Short cleansing flights on mild days. The hive getting lighter from one hefting to the next. The first pollen loads, where anything is flowering. | Little or none; a few early pollen sources on flying days. | Starvation — overall, or isolated from stores the cluster cannot reach in the cold. |
| Early spring | The brood area expands while the long-lived winter bees die off and are replaced. Brood food is made from pollen, so protein demand climbs with every frame of brood. | Pollen loads coming in at the entrance. Eggs and young larvae across a widening area. Stores shrinking quickly. | The first substantial pollen and nectar sources, usable only on days warm and dry enough to fly. | Spring starvation: a cold or wet fortnight stops foraging just as consumption peaks. |
| Build-up | The population grows fastest of the year. Drones are reared, new wax is drawn and the brood nest fills the space it has. | Brood on more frames at each inspection. Drone brood in drone comb. White, newly drawn wax. Bees crowding the frames and the inner cover. | Rising and increasingly reliable income. | Congestion, which is one of the conditions that tips a colony into swarm preparation. |
| Swarm season | The colony reproduces. Queen cells are raised, the queen slims down and lays less, and the prime swarm leaves with the old queen, typically around the time the first queen cells are capped. Further swarms may leave with virgin queens. | Queen cups with eggs or larvae, often along the lower edges of frames. Fewer eggs as the queen slows. Congested brood nest and idle bees. | Usually during strong spring forage, when the colony can afford to divide. | Losing half or more of the workforce, and the crop it would have gathered, in an afternoon. |
| Main flow | The forager force is at its peak and nectar arrives faster than at any other time. Receiver bees take it, move it between cells and concentrate it; ripe honey is capped with wax. | Heavy flight at the entrance and bees fanning. Fresh nectar glistening in cells. New white wax and cappings. Rapid weight gain. | The main flowering of the local nectar plants, or a honeydew flow in forest and conifer country. | Nectar stored in the brood nest when there is nowhere else to put it, which crowds the queen and can restart swarm preparation. |
| Dearth | Income stops. Brood rearing slows, foragers have little to do and a weak or exposed colony becomes a target for robbing by its neighbours and by wasps. | Bees testing the entrances of other hives. Fighting at the entrance. Wasps at the hive. Colonies more defensive than usual. | Little or none: a summer gap between flowerings in temperate country, the drought of a Mediterranean summer, or a tropical dry or rainy season. | Robbing, which can kill a weak colony and moves mites and disease between colonies. |
| Late season | The brood nest contracts and the colony rears its long-lived winter bees. Varroa, which has been multiplying all summer, is now concentrated on less brood — and that brood is the winter bees. | A shrinking brood area. Drones being expelled. Stores packed around and above the brood. | Declining; in some places a late flow from heather, ivy or balsam. | Winter bees damaged by mites, too few bees, or too little food going into winter. |
| Winter | A cluster: an insulating mantle of tightly packed bees around a looser core where bees shiver their flight muscles to make heat. In cold climates there is little or no brood for weeks. | Flight only on mild days. A slowly falling hive weight. Condensation under the roof where moisture is not escaping. | None in a cold winter; some in mild climates. | Starvation, damp and disease acting together, more often than cold alone. |
Phases, not months. The order is the same wherever honey bees overwinter; the dates are not, and depend on latitude, altitude, forage, the bees' lineage and the year's weather. Not every place has every phase — see the climate table.
Checked 2026-10-30 against: Preparing honey bee colonies for winter (Fact Sheet 19) (National Bee Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency, 2026); Honeybee colony thermoregulation – regulatory mechanisms and contribution of individuals in dependence on age, location and thermal stress (PLoS ONE, 2010); Nutrition and health in honey bees (Apidologie, 2010); Feeding sugar to bees (Best Practice Guideline No. 7a) (National Bee Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency, 2026); The Biology of the Honey Bee (Harvard University Press, 1987); Honeybee Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2010); Swarm control when you can't find the queen (Fact Sheet 24) (National Bee Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency, 2019); The tremble dance of the honey bee: message and meanings (Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 1992); A look into the cell: honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera (PLoS ONE, 2016); Mite bombs or robber lures? The roles of drifting and robbing in Varroa destructor transmission from collapsing honey bee colonies to their neighbors (PLoS ONE, 2019); Colony size, rather than geographic origin of stocks, predicts overwintering success in honey bees in the northeastern United States (Journal of Economic Entomology, 2019); Endothermic heat production in honeybee winter clusters (Journal of Experimental Biology, 2003).
Each phase has things worth weighing, and they are not all the same kind of statement. Some are biology, true of honey bees generally. Some are principles that follow from the biology and hold almost anywhere. Some are one authority's practice for one country, with figures calibrated to its hives and weather. The table keeps the three apart.
| Phase | Kind | What to weigh | Applies to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Late winter | Biology | Brood must be held within about 32–36 °C. Restarting brood rearing raises the colony's fuel use while the forage is still absent. | Honey bees generally |
| Late winter | Principle | How much is left matters, and so does where it is. A cluster can starve beside stores it cannot move to in a cold spell, and weighing the hive cannot show that. | Most managed colonies |
| Late winter | Regional practice | Heft hives every other week through winter; if a colony is light, give fondant over the cluster. Syrup is not fed in cold weather, because the bees cannot process it. | United Kingdom — National Bee Unit guidance |
| Early spring | Biology | Larvae are fed on secretions the nurse bees make from pollen; a colony short of protein cannot sustain the brood it starts. | Honey bees generally |
| Early spring | Principle | Stores left or fed in autumn are a better guard than emergency feeding in spring, when a colony can empty its reserves within weeks. | Most managed colonies |
| Early spring | Regional practice | In March and April a colony should hold at least four to five combs of stores, about 9 kg. | United Kingdom — National Bee Unit guidance |
| Build-up | Biology | Rearing drones comes before rearing queens: a colony invests in males before it reproduces by swarming. | Honey bees generally |
| Build-up | Principle | Space for the queen to lay and for nectar to be stored is given ahead of need, not once the frames are full. | Most managed colonies |
| Swarm season | Biology | Swarming is how a colony reproduces. It is not a malfunction, and in an unmanaged colony it is the normal outcome of a good spring. | Honey bees generally |
| Swarm season | Principle | Open queen cells with larvae mean preparations are under way. Sealed cells in a colony with far fewer bees and no eggs can mean the swarm has already gone. | Most managed colonies |
| Swarm season | Principle | Control methods work by doing what the swarm would: separating the queen and flying bees from the brood (an artificial swarm) or dividing the colony into a split or nucleus. | Most managed colonies |
| Main flow | Biology | Unloading is a bottleneck. A forager that waits long for a receiver performs the tremble dance, which recruits more receivers. | Honey bees generally |
| Main flow | Biology | Nectar is moved between cells and concentrated before final storage, and how it is stored depends on how concentrated it arrives. | Honey bees generally |
| Main flow | Principle | Storage space is given before the flow peaks. Capped comb is ripe; uncapped comb may still be too wet, and the Codex limit for most honey is 20% water. | Most managed colonies |
| Dearth | Biology | Collapsing, mite-heavy colonies pass mites to their neighbours mainly by being robbed, with drifting adding to it over short distances. | Honey bees generally |
| Dearth | Principle | Anything that smells of sugar outside a closed hive invites robbing; weak colonies are the ones overrun. | Most managed colonies |
| Dearth | Regional practice | When feeding, watch for robbing, feed in the evening and clean up spills at once. | United Kingdom — National Bee Unit guidance |
| Late season | Biology | Winter bees infested during development live shorter lives, and a treatment applied after they are reared kills mites without undoing that damage. | Honey bees generally |
| Late season | Biology | Autumn colony size predicted winter survival better than the origin of the stock in a study in the north-eastern United States. | Honey bees generally |
| Late season | Principle | Mite control is timed to protect the winter bees, which means before they are reared, not only before winter. | Most managed colonies |
| Late season | Regional practice | About 20 kg of honey in autumn as a general rule (18–22 kg in the feeding guideline); colonies under about 9,000 bees have a poor chance; small colonies are combined only if both are free of disease; syrup is fed early enough for the bees to store it. | United Kingdom — National Bee Unit guidance |
| Winter | Biology | A cluster stays stable only with both the mantle's insulation and heat from the bees inside it. | Honey bees generally |
| Winter | Biology | Common hives lose heat several times faster than a typical tree cavity, which is the argument for insulation and against thin-walled boxes in cold places. | Honey bees generally |
| Winter | Principle | Every opening costs heat. A winter check is brief, on a mild day, and only when there is a reason for it. | Most managed colonies |
| Winter | Regional practice | Damp, not cold, is given as the killer: hives are kept rain-proof and tilted so condensation runs out, insulation is used in harsh winters with ventilation kept, mouse guards are fitted and the queen excluder is removed. | United Kingdom — National Bee Unit guidance |
Biology is what colonies do, from research. A principle follows from the biology and holds across regions. Regional practice is one authority's advice for one place, with its figures — kilograms of stores, syrup strengths — calibrated to that place's hives and climate; it is shown so it can be compared, not followed elsewhere unexamined.
Checked 2026-10-30 against: Honeybee colony thermoregulation – regulatory mechanisms and contribution of individuals in dependence on age, location and thermal stress (PLoS ONE, 2010); Overwintering honey bees: biology and management (Current Opinion in Insect Science, 2015); Feeding sugar to bees (Best Practice Guideline No. 7a) (National Bee Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency, 2026); Preparing honey bee colonies for winter (Fact Sheet 19) (National Bee Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency, 2026); Nutrition and health in honey bees (Apidologie, 2010); The Biology of the Honey Bee (Harvard University Press, 1987); Honeybee Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2010); HoneyHQ editorial synthesis (HEKNO Ltd); The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild (Princeton University Press, 2019); Swarm control when you can't find the queen (Fact Sheet 24) (National Bee Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency, 2019); The tremble dance of the honey bee: message and meanings (Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 1992); A look into the cell: honey storage in honey bees, Apis mellifera (PLoS ONE, 2016); Standard for Honey (CXS 12-1981) (Codex Alimentarius Commission, FAO/WHO, 1981); Mite bombs or robber lures? The roles of drifting and robbing in Varroa destructor transmission from collapsing honey bee colonies to their neighbors (PLoS ONE, 2019); Colony size, rather than geographic origin of stocks, predicts overwintering success in honey bees in the northeastern United States (Journal of Economic Entomology, 2019); Endothermic heat production in honeybee winter clusters (Journal of Experimental Biology, 2003); Ratios of colony mass to thermal conductance of tree and man-made nest enclosures of Apis mellifera: implications for survival, clustering, humidity regulation and Varroa destructor (International Journal of Biometeorology, 2016).
Not every climate has a winter
Most beekeeping manuals in English were written for a temperate year with a cold winter. In a Mediterranean climate the lean season is a dry summer; in much of the tropics it is a dry or a rainy season, and colonies may rear brood all year; in migratory beekeeping the beekeeper, not the flowering, sets much of the sequence. The phases are the same building blocks, in a different order.
| Climate | Where | Phases, in order | What limits the year | What differs | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temperate, with a cold winter | Northern and central Europe, the northern United States, Canada, temperate Asia and uplands elsewhere. | Late winter → Early spring → Build-up → Swarm season → Main flow → Dearth → Late season → Winter | Winter: months without forage, survived on stores as a cluster. | The full sequence, and the one most beekeeping manuals are written for. The summer dearth is not universal: some places run from one flow into the next. | Sourced |
| Mediterranean | The Mediterranean basin, California, central Chile, the Western Cape and south-western and southern Australia. | Early spring → Build-up → Swarm season → Main flow → Dearth → Late season → Winter | Summer drought, when little flowers. The mild winter often has forage and some brood. | The lean season comes in summer rather than winter. Autumn rain can bring a second, smaller flow, and colonies may never stop rearing brood entirely. | Partly sourced. For Provence, the Miel de Provence PGI specification documents a season that starts early and ends late: rosemary flowering from February–March, a rosemary flow in spring (rarely in autumn), heather in September–October, and honey taken off at the end of each flow. It does not describe a summer dearth; that, and the other regions listed, remain HoneyHQ synthesis. |
| Tropical and subtropical, with wet and dry seasons | Much of Africa, South and South-East Asia, Central and South America and northern Australia. | Dearth → Build-up → Swarm season → Main flow → Dearth | A dearth set by rain rather than temperature: the dry season in some places, the heaviest rains in others. | No winter and no winter bees. Colonies can rear brood all year, swarm more than once, and — among African and African-derived bees especially — abandon the nest altogether in a dearth or after disturbance. | HoneyHQ synthesis |
| Migratory and commercial operations | Wherever colonies are moved to pollination contracts and successive flows — the United States, Australia, parts of Europe and Asia. | Late winter → Build-up → Main flow → Main flow → Dearth → Late season → Winter | Whichever lean period falls between moves, plus the stress of transport. | The beekeeper, not the local flowering, sets much of the sequence. Build-up is pushed early for pollination contracts, and a colony can meet several flows in one year in different places. | Partly sourced. Moving hives to follow successive flows is documented for Provence: its PGI specification describes a customary route from wintering sites to the mountains until the end of spring, then to the lavender, and back south in autumn. The pollination-contract pattern and the other countries listed remain HoneyHQ synthesis. |
The order of phases, not their length: a phase can last a week in one place and three months in another. Rows marked HoneyHQ synthesis are a reading of general principles, not a sourced regional calendar; in partly sourced rows only the part named is sourced. Neither is a substitute for local guidance.
Checked 2026-10-30 against: Overwintering honey bees: biology and management (Current Opinion in Insect Science, 2015); Preparing honey bee colonies for winter (Fact Sheet 19) (National Bee Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency, 2026); Cahier des charges — indication géographique protégée « Miel de Provence » (Syndicat des apiculteurs de Provence (EU register, eAmbrosia), 2005); HoneyHQ editorial synthesis (HEKNO Ltd); The Biology of the Honey Bee (Harvard University Press, 1987).
Dearth, robbing and drifting
When forage stops, a strong colony's foragers do not stop looking. They test the entrances of weaker neighbours, and a colony that cannot defend itself can be stripped of its stores within days. Robbing is also how disease travels: colonies collapsing under a heavy mite load pass mites to their neighbours mainly by being robbed, with bees drifting into the wrong hive adding to it over short distances.
- Principle: anything sweet left open in a dearth invites robbing — spilled syrup, exposed comb, a hive left open too long.
- Principle: weak and dying colonies are a risk to their neighbours as well as to themselves, which is why a collapsing colony is dealt with rather than left.
- UK practice: the National Bee Unit advises feeding in the evening and cleaning up spills at once, to keep robbing down.
Sources
- HoneyHQ editorial synthesis — HEKNO Ltd · HoneyHQ synthesis
- Preparing honey bee colonies for winter (Fact Sheet 19) — National Bee Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency (2026) · Regulatory guidance Link
- Feeding sugar to bees (Best Practice Guideline No. 7a) — National Bee Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency (2026) · Regulatory guidance Link
- Overwintering honey bees: biology and management — Current Opinion in Insect Science (2015) · Peer-reviewed article Link
- Mite bombs or robber lures? The roles of drifting and robbing in Varroa destructor transmission from collapsing honey bee colonies to their neighbors — PLoS ONE (2019) · Peer-reviewed article Link
- The Biology of the Honey Bee — Harvard University Press (1987) · Textbook
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
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