Where do bees go in the winter?

Bees spend the winter huddled together in their hives.  Inside the hive, the bees move about slowly, eating the extra honey that they stored during the busy summer season, and buzzing their wings to keep warm.  If a bee becomes too cold, it cannot move and thus, soon dies.  

Before the end of winter, the queen bee begins to lay eggs again, and in the spring, all the busy activities of the hive are resumed.  In warm climates, however, where there is something in flower the year round, honeybees remains active, making honey in every season.–Dick Rogers

What is a Yak?

Yak

The yak is the shaggy-coated wild ox of Asia. There are not many places that are less pleasant to live in than the high, windswept plateaus of Tibet.

The winters are bitterly cold and food is scarce.  Yet this bleak land, in which few other animals can endure, is the home of the yak.  The wild yak may stand over 6 feet high at the shoulders and weigh more than 1,000 pounds.

Its thick, woolly hair may grow so long that it may even drag on the ground.  Its heavy coat is good protection against the cold. Despite its large size, the yak is as sure-footed as a goat on the sleep mountain-sides.

Some yaks have been tamed.  Tibetan people depend on the yak for their meal, drink their pink milk, and weave their long hair into ropes and cloth and use yaks for pack animals.  

Domesticated yaks are sometimes called “grunting oxen” because they grunt when overloaded. - Dick Rogers

How do frogs stay under water so long?

When under water, a frog takes in oxygen through its skin.  When a frog dives under water, he does not come to the  surface as quickly as you have to when you dive.  Why not?

The frog, of course, cannot breathe under water, as it did when it was a tadpole.  When a frog is on the bank or pond, it breathes with its lungs, which are somewhat like your lungs.

There is always some air mixed with water in the pond.  When the frog is under water, it can take a little of the air it needs through its skin.  This explains why the frog can stay under water all winter.

If you live where the winters are cold, you have probably noticed that the frogs seem to disappear when cold weather comes.  Many frogs dive into ponds and bury themselves in the muddy bottom, and quickly fall asleep.  Sleeping all winter is called “hibernation.”

While the frog is sleeping, its body keeps so still that it can get along without any fresh air until it wakes in the spring.  During its winter sleep, the frog lives on the food stored in its fat body.-Dick Rogers

Do Bumblebee Make Honey?

Bumblebee

The bumblebee is a large, black and yellow bee that buzzes loudly when it flies.  Its name comes from the old word “bumblen,”  meaning “humming.”  

Like honeybees, bumblebees, too, make hone.  But we do not eat their honey.  Bumblebee nests are very different from those of honeybees.  They do not build hives of honeycombs.

Bumblebees may make their nests in an abandoned mouse nest, thick tuffs of grass, or in hoes in the ground.  

Inside the nest, the queen bumblebee stores honey inside a waxen cell called a “honeypot,”  which serves her as a reserve food supply during cold and rainy weather.

Bumblebee honey is almost as thin as nectar and will soon sour if not eater.  Bumblebees are helpful to man – they carry pollen from one flower to another.  Only the young queen bumblebees live through the winter to start new colonies. - Dick Rogers