Now that we have had the first cold blast of winter, Mendip’s Beekeepers and their honey bees have hunkered down to wait for spring.

Honey bees spend the summer collecting nectar and storing it as honey to provide the energy that will help them through winter. As temperatures drop, the bees start to cluster together, shivering their wing muscles to generate heat and maintain a temperature of about 30 celsius. The cluster gradually moves around inside the hive as the honey around it is eaten and over the whole winter, a colony may eat 20kg.

In the New Year, as the days start to lengthen, the Queen will start to lay eggs again and on mild days, bees will leave the hive to find pollen for the new brood. Winter flowering varieties of mahonia, heather and clematis are very popular, particularly if they catch the sun as this helps the bees to stay warm.

It is late in the winter that honey bees are most at risk. A cold snap can prevent them from foraging when their stores have been used up, or disease may weaken the colony, leaving it too small to keep warm. Beekeepers can help by providing sugar fondant as emergency food and by ensuring that their bees are healthy at the start of winter.

The Mendip Division of the Somerset Beekeepers Association is running a Beginners Beekeeping course for people planning to keep bees. It will run from 9.30 a.m. to

4 p.m. on Saturday, 28th January and Saturday, 4th February at Chilcompton Church Hall. Places are limited and anyone interested should call Mark Hitchens on: 01761 453496 for more information.

Mark Hitchens