How do Native Bees Survive the Winter? - Naturalist Notes

Leaf-Cutter Bee cutting a leaf for constructing nest cells.

Our Michigan native bee species, such as carpenter bees, mason bees and leaf-cutter bees, are solitary creatures (as are most bees in North America) and have adapted to survive the cold winters when their nectar food source is dormant. So, they have got to halt their activity and adapt to their changing environment.

Mason Bee, Photo Credit: Jason Gibbs, MSU

The overwintering for a bee varies by the species. Bees that are young and active in the summer, like the leaf-cutter bees, will hibernate and overwinter in the larvae life cycle stage. These bees like to nest in tree cavities or in the ground.

Bees doing their baby bee-thang in early spring, like mason bees, will have the time it takes to pupate in the summer and overwinter as hibernating adults in their cocoons.

Carpenter bee. Males have yellow faces. Photo credit: Jason Gibbs, MSU

Here is a sneak peak at a poem from our upcoming StoryWalk for February, Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold. It highlights honeybees (native to Europe) ways of surviving the winter, together as one.

WINTER BEES

We are an ancient tribe,

a hardy scrum.

Born with eyelash legs

and tinsel wings, 

we are nothing on our own.

Together, we are One.

We scaled a million blooms

to reap the summer’s glow.

Now, in the merciless cold,

we share each morsel of heat,

each honeyed crumb.

We cram to a sizzling ball

to warm our queen, our heart, our home.

Alone, we would falter and drop,

a dot on the canvas snow.

Together, we boil, we teem, we hum.

Deep in the winter hive,

we burn like a golden sun.

Written by Cass Arsenault, Lead Naturalist, November 2021