Snow starts melting, the temperature rises to nearly 60 degrees, and you see a cloud of insects flying about.
Winter is a difficult time for all animals, and insects are no exception.
Food supplies are low or nonexistent, temperatures plummet far below freezing, and warm-blooded predators such as mice and birds are a constant threat. Insects have a variety of tactics for getting through the winter, all of them remarkable in their own way. A particular problem insects face in the winter is the rupturing of their cells by the formation of ice crystals. To combat this, insects produce alcohols in their bodies which act as antifreeze. With the exception of a few species which live in near-perpetual freezing conditions, all insects enter a state called diapause during the winter.