Trade Secrets of The Ingenious Beehive Air Conditioning System

While this year’s summer temperatures are soaring up into the 30 degrees C range and the nation is melting, have you ever wondered how the honeybees, the little powerhouses of energy and adaptation, keep their hives cool in such weather? 

The answer is quite fascinating and as producers of the finest honey in Nottinghamshire (obviously), we’d like to share the secrets of the clever solution that the humble honeybee has come up with to keep the hive cool.

Honeybees; The Expert HVAC, Air-Con Engineers

As everyone knows, beehives are tightly regulated environments that need to maintain an internal temperature within the temperature range of between 33 and 35 degrees C. Any deviation from this can cause stress and ultimately death to all stages of the bee life cycle, from the eggs to the larvae and ultimately to the adult bees. 

When the weather heats up, bees – although they may be humble problem-solving geniuses in some realms of the natural world – have to rough it at home. 

They can’t just open the doors and windows to enjoy passive ventilation flowing, or change their duvets from 13.5 to a 4-tog and pour themselves a greater pitcher of mojito or pina colada rammed with ice. 

So how do they play it?

Team Work Makes the Dream Work!

When the going gets hot, bees get to work. 

So, first off, the scout bees switch roles from scouting for honey sources to scouting for and gathering water. If you have a leaking garden tap or hosepipe, you can be inundated with hoards of these thirsty bees!

These scout bees collect the water and store it in their stomachs in little sacs for the flight back home, regurgitating it on strategic surfaces around the hive upon their return. 

The other worker bees then group together and fan their wings to form an air circulation system, which evaporates the water droplets and cools the hive. 

Now this is the even more clever bit! 

How do the bees know when to crank up their air conditioning system and all work together at the same time? 

They text each other! 

In the absence of bee-sized mobile phones, they use pheromones and vibration patterns in lieu, which signal the instructions of where to locate themselves and to get busy fanning. 

How evolution has allowed for this is pretty amazing in itself as this behavioural trait is an established genetic endemic within the honeybee population. 

Which was the first honey bee population to demonstrate this trait as there must have been one? And does every honey bee colony demonstrate this behaviour?