Bees in Winter

Why Talk About Bees in Winter — and on a Day Like Today?

Winter in the northern hemisphere tends to make us think of wildlife as “gone.”
The flowers disappear, the trees stand bare, and the world slips into that quiet, frozen hush.

Bees are wildlife.
They are keystone creatures.
And they are deeply vulnerable to:

• habitat loss

• monoculture

• pesticides

• climate extremes

• sudden temperature shocks like today’s polar vortex

Winter kills colonies long before summer stress ever gets to them.

So yes — shining the spotlight on bees today is not only appropriate, it’s exactly the kind of conservation awareness this day calls for, especially since yesterday, December 4, was World Wildlife Conservation Day.

But while we sip hot drinks and try to keep our own wiring from shorting out, something remarkable is happening in the deep corners of the natural world — especially inside a beehive.

🐝 The Winter Cluster: A Living Heater

Honeybees don’t hibernate.
They engineer a group survival strategy so elegant it borders on choreography.

They gather into a tight sphere around their queen — the winter cluster — and maintain a steady 90–95°F (32–35°C) even when the outside world could freeze eyelashes in seconds. Bees on the outer layer rotate inward like a slow-motion spiral, taking turns in the warm center so nobody freezes.

It’s the opposite of “every bee for herself.”
It’s shared survival.

🧠 What We Could Learn From Winter Bees

Here is where it gets interesting — because bee behavior isn’t just clever biology. It’s a mirror held up to us.

In a culture that’s increasingly tuned to “me, me, me”, bees show us what intelligent, sustainable interdependence actually looks like.

1. They prioritize the collective, not the ego.

No bee says,
“I shouldn’t have to rotate — I warmed the queen yesterday.”
They just do the thing that keeps everyone alive.

Imagine human systems with that level of quiet, consistent cooperation.

2. They take turns.

Revolutionary, I know.
The outer layer gets cold, so they rotate inward.
Nobody gets stuck in the worst spot forever; nobody hogs the best spot forever.

It’s fairness built into muscle memory.

3. They regulate from within before reacting outward.

Bees don’t blame the wind or complain about the cold.
They warm themselves — individually and together — before responding to the environment.

That’s nervous-system wisdom we could all use.

4. They conserve instead of consuming.

In winter, no one is out there trying to find more, more, more.
They live from what they already have — and manage it wisely.

Human society runs the opposite direction:
panic-driven consumption, fear-driven accumulation, and an attention economy designed to stir frenzy.

5. They honor their limits.

Bees don’t fly when it’s unsafe.
They don’t push past their capacity.
They wait until their internal systems agree with the external world.

Humans?
We override every signal we have.

6. They remember they are part of something larger.

A hive isn’t 30,000 separate insects.
It’s one organism made of many.
If that sounds mystical — it is.

Nature pulls it off daily.

7. They prepare during abundance to survive during scarcity.

They don’t treat summer as an endless buffet.
They treat it as the foundation for winter.

In human terms:
We could build better systems if we didn’t behave as though every moment must be maximized, monetized, or exhausted.

🐝 Waiting for the Sun’s Return

On the first barely-warm day of late winter, the hive suddenly erupts.
The bees rush out for cleansing flights and recalibrate themselves to the landscape. The trees are still bare; the ground still asleep. But something subtle has shifted, and the bees respond instinctively.

Winter is not their downfall.
It is their wisdom-season.

And in a world that sometimes feels like an endless, noisy scramble for attention, status, and “survival of the loudest,” winter bees remind us that thriving often begins with:

• slowing down

• huddling together

• supporting one another

• and creating warmth from within

They move when the world whispers — not when human calendars insist. 

🌍 Winter Bees as Conservation Teachers

Conservation isn’t just about saving species.
It’s about learning from them.

Bees show us:

• balance

• restraint

• cooperation

• environmental attunement

• the long view

• collective regulation

• and the grace of contributing to something larger than oneself

Which, honestly, is not a bad message for a polar vortex — or for humanity as a whole.

Buzzing My Way Into Chicago Libraries

 

🐝 Well, I’ve gone and done it. I just applied for a grant to get my book Bees, Biofeedback, and the Living Warning System into Chicago libraries. Because apparently, I don’t know when to stop poking at big problems with my pen.

Why libraries? Because walking into a library and stumbling across a book? That’s magic. One copy can reach hundreds of people, and maybe one of them will start connecting the dots between fewer bees in the garden, heavy Midwestern cornfields, sticky humid summers, and what all that does to human health.

I’ve gardened for years and I keep seeing fewer bees. And, I love libraries having used them for decades. It’s not just about honey — it’s about climate, food, and the fact that our nervous systems and theirs aren’t so different when stress piles up. The book digs into all of that, but the point here is simple: I want it sitting on shelves in Chicago, waiting to be picked up for free by whoever needs it.

So yes, I sent out invites to my shiny new project page (I don't blame you if you ignored them). Since the foundation uses that link to evaluate my credentials, I would love a follow (I have 10 now, but anything will be better)! Here is the link: [Bees, Biofeedback, and the Living Warning System | Facebook].  

There should be a "follow" button on the right, or perhaps in blue in the middle. I am still trying to figure out technology! While I wait to see if the Awesome Foundation thinks this is awesome enough, I’d love your support. 

And if not, that’s fine too — I’ll just keep buzzing on over here, planting words like seeds and hoping they take root. 🐝📚

Practicing What I Preach (Without a Shopping Bag)

On August 16, I wrote about how to vet bee causes. I did that because “save the bees” has become a slogan everyone slaps on a T-shirt, a coffee mug, or a bumper sticker. Some of those causes are genuine. Some of them are just hopping on the buzz. And if you care about bees — really care — you don’t want your money or your attention going to the wrong hive.

That got me thinking: if I’m going to hand out advice about vetting, I should also show what it looks like in practice. Because advice without examples is like a flower with no nectar — nice to look at, not much use to the bees.

Here’s one example: Bow to the Bee. They’re a small jewelry brand, founded in 2020, and they pledge 20% of every sale to the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance. That’s not a fuzzy feel-good promise. That’s a real group working on regenerative farming practices — the kind that actually improve soil health, reduce pesticide dependence, and give pollinators a fighting chance.

Now, here’s the honest part: I haven’t bought anything from them. Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s not in the budget. Still, when I run across a company that checks all the boxes I talked about in my earlier post, the least I can do is point other people toward them. That’s a form of support, too. Words can carry just as much weight as wallets, and in this case, I want mine to.

And trust me, I know how advertising works. Ever since I wrote my bee book, Facebook has been throwing “save the bees” ads at me left and right. Suddenly my feed is full of shiny T-shirts, trinkets, and gimmicks from sellers dressed up in bee costumes — all of them claiming they’re here to save the hive. It’s enough to make you suspicious of any yellow-and-black logo. Which is exactly why I vet first and share only if something holds up under closer inspection.

I don’t do affiliate links (that's why I purposefully did not link to their store in this post), and I don’t write about companies because anyone asked me to. I’m writing this because I believe in practicing what I preach, even if I can’t back it up with a receipt.

So if you’re in the market for something shiny — a bracelet, a necklace, a small gift with actual meaning — this is a place where your purchase would ripple out beyond the jewelry box. It’s a way to help build better habitats for bees.

Sometimes support doesn’t look like buying. Sometimes it looks like sharing. And that’s all I’m doing here: passing along a lead that I think is worth a little attention.
Buzz with backbone. That’s the kind of noise I want more of.

A Summer Saved By Sunflowers

 

Tom and I are summer people. We live for that moment when everything wakes up, stretches, and bursts into color. Technically, that’s spring—but spring here has a way of being moody, unreliable, and often still wrapped in its winter coat. So, summer is when we truly exhale and wander back out into the world.

Except this year, we didn’t.

Not once.

No alpaca farm.

No farmers market.

No sandwiches tucked away in the woods.

No lakeside strolls, no car shows, no baseball games.

And—perhaps the saddest of them all—no sunflower farm… until yesterday.

A Late-Season Pilgrimage

We’ve been making the sunflower pilgrimage once a year for about five seasons now. The farm is 75 miles away, which makes it a once-a-summer treat. We chose yesterday because, for the first time since June, the humidity dropped low enough that our AC-less car ride felt survivable.

The trip itself was a trial—two hours longer than usual, enough to test anyone’s patience. But nature has a way of paying back persistence.

Drooping Reflections

At first, I wasn’t sure it would. The fields near the entrance were tired. Low-hanging heads, spotted with fungus, drooping like they’d given their all. And honestly? It matched how we’ve felt this summer—spent, wilted, worn out.

But deeper in, there it was: one glorious last field of the season.

Tall sunflowers, golden faces lifted high, defiant against the season’s end. And thousands—literally thousands—of bees. Usually, when we visit earlier in the year, the bees are scattered and the crowds are thick. Yesterday, with cooler weather and end-of-season timing, we had the field almost to ourselves. Just wind, buzzing bees, and the occasional bird song. I always try to bottle that sound in my mind. This year, it was even sweeter in the quiet.

An Unexpected Visitor

Just as I was thinking of heading back, I felt a sensation on my hand. A monarch butterfly had landed. I startled and it lifted—but only to perch on a nearby leaf, waiting patiently as I fumbled out my humble cell phone.

For five magical minutes, it danced for me, wings glowing orange against the fading green of leaves. Monarchs, fragile-looking yet fierce enough to travel thousands of miles, reminded me of us: tired, but tougher than we give ourselves credit for.

A Familiar Friend

On the way out, there was one more gift. A fluffy farm cat lounging in the shade, pretending not to notice us. I nearly walked past, but at the last second, I knelt to say hello.

He leapt up immediately—purring, rubbing, bumping against my hand as if we were old friends. Tom joined in, and the cat doubled his affection, meowing like a friend who was catching up with us after a long year. 

“Happy shiny animal aura people,” Tom calls us. And maybe he’s right.

Summer, Redeemed

We didn’t check off the usual list this summer. No festivals, no lake days, no car shows. But in one late-season trip—bees humming, monarchs dancing, sunflowers blazing, and a cat’s purr vibrating against our hands—we got our summer after all.  (scroll all the way down for all pictures)

Bees, Biofeedback, and the Living Warning System

This summer didn’t just bring heat. It brought a sauna cranked to “hellfire” with no one left to turn the dial back down. The air didn’t just hang heavy — it pressed in, corn sweat sticking to skin like a clingy ex who doesn’t get the hint.

That’s where this book began.

I couldn’t walk outside without feeling the edge of collapse. My body — the same one that’s already juggling chronic conditions like a circus clown on two hours of sleep — was sending signals. And they all seemed to translate to fried nerves. After watching a timely documentary on PBS about bees, I realized: the bees were doing the same. Their collapse wasn’t abstract news. It was feedback. A warning.

Why bees? Why now?

Because when an ecosystem gasps, so do the creatures inside it. And whether we want to admit it or not, we’re just bigger, sweatier bees in the same overheating hive.

The funny thing is, bees don’t collapse quietly. They buzz, they swarm, they disappear. They send messages with their very survival. We’re just not great at listening — at least not until the shelves are empty and the pollen trails are gone.

Who this book is (and isn’t) for

And look — if you’re one of those lucky souls who never minds the heat, who calls 95 degrees “just summer” and thrives in weather that makes the rest of us wilt? This book probably isn’t for you. Nothing to see here — move along, enjoy your iced tea in the sun.

For the rest of us — the ones whose bodies keep the score, who feel every pressure change, every scorch of humidity — this book is the conversation we’ve been missing.

Different from the gnomes

Some of you know me from the gnome books. Those are playful, punny, moss-capped little adventures — whimsical escapes where a goat or a cat might deliver a line better than most politicians.

This book isn’t that.

It’s not whimsical, though my wit still slips through the cracks (I can’t help it). This one is heavier. It’s heart and nerve endings, it’s the body screaming in chorus with the climate. It’s me pulling the threads between collapsing hives, chronic illness, and the way our systems — personal and planetary — are wired to warn us before they break.

An invitation

This isn’t a manifesto, and it’s not a self-help book with “10 Easy Steps to Save the Bees and Your Gut.” It’s a conversation. A reflection. A nudge to pay attention to what your body, and the world, are already telling you.

Because the bees aren’t just collapsing “out there.” They’re buzzing the same alarm we carry in our cells.

And maybe, just maybe, listening is the first step to healing — both kinds.

And if you’re still reading this far? Maybe you’re already part of the hive. 🐝

Bees, Biofeedback, and the Living Warning System - now available on Amazon.