Mickey recently wrote:
Hmmm, I don't believe insects huddle up and shiver the way children
would...
- -Mickey
Actually, that's pretty much how a colony of 30-40,000 honey bees
makes it through one of our Minnesota winters. They form a "cluster" the
size of a basketball in the hive, with the outermost bees closely
huddled together to prevent loss of heat from the cluster. Consumption
of about 5 pounds of honey/month through the dead of winter can keep the
temperature in the center of the cluster, where the bees are active and
more widely spaced, in the 80-90 degree range. Sorry, but I used to
keep over 600 colonies of bees, and with the OT verbage of the last
couple posts, I though this non-OM tidbit wouldn't bee too far off base.
Dean
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