How bugs — from ants to bees — survive winter

Ants have antifreeze.

When winter comes, they go underground and hibernate. When their antennae are turned off, they fuel themselves with glycerin – a form of alcohol – which keeps their exoskeletons intact. In the spring they thaw and are ready to march to their first picnic.

Across the landscape other insects are roaming about, hiding in stone walls or houses – think stink bugs, think ladybugs – and finding ways to survive the cold days ahead.

Just because the mosquitoes that bite us or the locusts that sing us to sleep aren’t there doesn’t mean it’s quiet. Insect life is still vibrant.

“It’s very lively,” said Gale Ridge, an entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven.

Start with the state’s streams and rivers. Despite the cold, aquatic insects are still alive, thriving and moving.

“They’re out there all winter,” said Mike Jastremski, director of watershed protection at the Housatonic Valley Association, the Cornwall-based environmental agency.

Jastremski said that caddis flies, mayflies and stoneflies are just part of the range of aquatic insects that humans can see through their frosty breath. These are nymphs that emerge as adults in spring.

Ridge of the experimental station said other insects seek shelter in the open environment.

Ticks, for example, simply burrow into the leaf litter and wait for the last proper blood meal of the year. Neither sleet nor rain nor heat nor darkness of the night prevent these little parasites from clinging to you. Even snow doesn’t kill ticks – it just provides them with a nice warm blanket. In thaws, they can emerge.

“That’s why ticks can be dangerous for hikers in January,” she said.

Along with spiders, ticks belong to the arthropod family. So does springtails, also known as snow fleas.

They live in decaying organic material. You can’t fly. But if they use their tails as stepping stones, they can hop in earnest.

Ridge said they’re there year-round. But in late winter and early spring they push to the surface of the snow and we can see black dots against a white background.

“It’s a matter of contrast,” she said.

Honey bees retreat to their hives for the winter. Their metabolism slows down and they feed on the stored honey. On warm winter days they show up and do some housework, cleaning the hive before heading back when the cold sets in again.

Ridge said wild bees do the same.

“You’ll see them coming out of tree hollows,” she said.

Wasps and hornets die in the cold. But Ridge said young, fertilized queens take refuge in places like stone walls and wait out the winter. In the spring they emerge, lay eggs and start a new tribe.

There are dormant insects and larvae that settle in the bark of trees. That’s why you see the regulars of the winter birds – tits, chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers – working their way up tree trunks and branches in the cold. They peck at the bark for food.

Some insects — most notably monarch butterflies — survive New England winters by migrating there entirely. Green dragonflies too.

But one species of butterfly — the mourning cloak — makes the difference here

Redding lepidopterist Victor DeMasi said mourning cloaks find shelter under tree bark and in man-made structures.

“You’ll find them in clapboards behind wooden shutters,” he said

they hibernate. Like ants, they produce glycerin – a natural antifreeze. Wait.

Then, when the weather changes, they warm up and flutter away. They have beautiful brown wings with a yellow border. They are usually the first butterflies people see in spring.

DeMasi said if they know where and how to look, they can find butterfly egg masses, butterfly pupae, and butterfly cocoons along with mourning cloaks — adults — in winter.

“You can find all four stages of butterfly life,” he said.

Some spiders die in winter, leaving behind their egg sacs. Some will scurry into your home or ride in a Christmas tree, weaving webs and leaving cobwebs in the corners.

Most live outside in winter. They rest under the leaf litter and in turn produce glycerin, which acts as an antifreeze. But they’re not true hibernators – if it’s warm and they can get out and find a meal, they will.

All these insects are waiting in one way or another. Someday spring will come. They begin to move and mate.

“Once it gets warmer, things start all over again,” Ridge said.

Contact Robert Moller at earthmattersrgm@gmail.com