Where are the bees now?
Summer's over... and you might be wondering where the bumble bees went!
Fall is a time of transition for bumbles. In late summer, new bumble bee queens (gynes) focus on mating and then begin preparing for overwintering. Before you know it, they go underground and enter their long winters nap.
Here at WPC, our bees go through these same natural cycles. We provide them with mating opportunities before the winter and then give the new queens space to sleep. We place them in tubes filled with clean, sterilized soil and keep them in a controlled fridge environment where temperature and humidity are carefully monitored. We then check on them throughout the winter (weighing them and changing out their soil) to make sure they are doing well, and anxiously await their awakening in spring. This exact process is what led to our first-ever lab generation of bees this past year! We can't wait to share more about these queens next spring, when they will have the opportunity to build colonies of their own.