To bee in quarantine?

It's March of 2020, and almost all Europe is in quarantine because of the Coronavirus. Everyone in their own home, without being able to get out. Bees too have some kind of quarantine: winter. In fact, in winter bees won't get out of their hive for about 3 months due to the inhospitable weather outside.

But how does it work? First of all, it is important to know that the bees we see flying around and collect nectar during summer are not the same bees that live in winter. Summer bees have an average life of about 5 weeks, while the winter ones stay alive for the whole season! Sure, it is true that summer bees could often live longer but instead, they die of fatigue, but sure enough, they wouldn't be able to live up to three months. The longest living bees are such in order to preserve the hive and make it flourish again in spring. In fact, their primary goal is to protect the queen bee, which can live up to 5 years, from the cold weather. Thus they create a "winter cluster", a kind of ball around the queen bee, and this way, being all compact like penguins, they are able to keep the queen warm for the whole season. These winter bees won't be useful anymore in spring and they will die, and the queen bee will lay eggs for summer bees, those we see in the fields flying from flower to flower.

During summer the hive is inhabited not only by the queen bee and worker bees, but also by drones, the males of the bee species. They are then ejected from the community during fall and are absent in winter. Why? Because they are completely unuseful. They don't do anything to help the hive to survive and they are a burden for society. Women, can we learn anything from bees?

Enjoy!

V.