Home▸Biology & Life▸Inside the Winter Cluster

❄️ Inside the Winter Cluster: How Honeybee Colonies Survive the Cold

A 3D cutaway hive where you control outside temperature, colony size, varroa load and honey-frame isolation to see whether a winter bee cluster holds its core heat, burns through its stores, or dies with honey still in the hive.

Biology & Life3DModerate60 FPS

A 3D cutaway hive showing a honeybee colony's winter cluster contracting against the cold, slowly migrating across honey frames as it feeds, and — depending on the conditions you set — either riding out the winter or dying with honey still in the hive.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

How outside temperature, colony size and varroa load interact through a simple thermal and consumption model to determine core cluster temperature, honey burn rate, and whether the cluster can migrate onto fresh stores before local honey runs out.

🎮 How to Use

Set the outside temperature, starting colony size and varroa load, then run the clock forward with the sim-speed slider. Toggle "Force isolation" to see a cluster die of isolation starvation — surrounded by full frames it can no longer reach.

💡 Did You Know?

Isolation starvation is one of the most common recorded causes of winter colony loss: post-mortem inspections often find frames still packed with honey just one comb-width from where the cluster finally gave out.

⚙ Under the hood

A 3D cutaway hive simulation where a winter bee cluster contracts against the cold, burns honey, and migrates frame to frame — letting you test whether a colony survives the winter or dies of isolation starvation with honey still in the hive.

overwinteringwinter-clusterthermodynamicscolony-mortalityvarroa

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install