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It's the end of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s "Bee Part Of It" campaign. Our local radio stations have been looking after their hives since the start of the year and many have now harvested the honey produced. But what happens to the bees now as we head into what looks like a very cold winter?

Well as you can see from our thermal camera picture above the bees in the hive are definitely giving out some heat. You can see the red and white patch right at the centre of the hive. Here a core of honeybees will huddle together, staying warm, to make it through the winter.

Unlike wasps and bumblebees our honeybees don't hibernate, in fact they rely on the honey they produce for food. It takes about 20-30 lb of honey to survive an average winter. Obviously the beekeepers encourage the bees to produce more for our toast.

You can read more about the honeybee at the British Beekeepers Association website . And I must say thank you to Genevieve Tudor from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire for helping us out with a hive to use our thermal camera on. You can read more about her bees on her .

Across the Midlands our "Bee Part of It" hives produced markedly different amounts of honey with ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester topping our league with 11.5kg of honey. ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire's hive didn't make it this year so they came bottom. Radio Stoke didn't harvest because their bees didn't arrive till July and they'll need the honey to make it through the winter. But at least now we know they should stay nice and warm.

If you keep bees let us know how your year has been in the comments below.

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