Bees age by rearing brood, but also by foraging. So basically by workload.



Queenless summerbees are physiologically not different from winter bees. They do differ some what because their workload doffers and cicumstances are a bit different.



In contrast to winter bees, Queenless summer bees most likely foraged a bit more before going into their 'winter modus' so that will reduce their lifespan. At the same time, when broodless, the energetically very expensive task of brood rearing falls away, extending the lifespan of the bees hatched last enormously. Also when broodless, the thermostate of the nest can become 18°C (34°C when brood is present). In summer or fall this is energeretically very cheap because the difference between in and out side temperatures are small. The low costs for thermoregulation will extent their lifespan. If their are still drones in the colony, their only cost energy, they do absolutely nothing besides eating. Worker bees have to keep them warm, which reduces there lifespan.



Theoretically they could live just as long as winter bees, depending on the outcome of the costs I explained above. However as their winter started already in August, it is most likely going to be too long and to big a challenge to survival the whole winter. Also for thermoregulation to be optimal the colony size needs to be at least 5000 bees (here that would be about 3 frames). The bees that took care of the last brood have probably died by now. The bees left in the nest were the ones hatched last. Those bees are 'winterbees' even when hatched in August. They did no brood rearing and I expect by that time pollen were already dwindling. No not much foraging either.



You could either

-Follow them and see what happens (they die)

-If they survive winter. Give them sugar and some comb with eggs in Februari and see what happens.

-Isolate the hive to reduce thermoregulation costs further

-use them to strengthen another colony



Coby















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