Honey bee colonies are perennial, so they normally live year round, attuned to the environment and totally dependent on the seasons. Their activities are limited by temperature because honey bees do not fly when the temperature is below about 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius). This physiological limitation corresponds to the growing season of the flowers that bees rely on for food, meaning that they are able to fly when food is available.
During the winter, bees stop foraging when nectar is no longer available. They depend on stored honey to sustain them through the cold weather, and they cluster together to stay warm. Most species have evolved responses that permit them to survive times of famine, and bees are no exception; they switch resources from reproduction to basic maintenance of the body. The queen stops laying eggs during the late fall and early winter so there are no larvae to attend. The bees' metabolism slows down, allowing them to minimize energy consumption when supplies are scarce. On nice days, bees emerge from the nest to get rid of wastes, but generally they stay relatively quiet until the spring arrives.
By some time in the very early spring, the queen begins laying eggs (brood production), as many as several hundred each day as long as there are ample supplies of honey and pollen remaining in the nest's storage cells and there are environmental signals that fresh supplies will soon become available as the flowers begin to come into bloom and there are enough workers to keep the eggs warm. If food is scarce, her egg-laying activity level is reduced, creating an ongoing seasonal balance between the food supply and the numbers of eggs, larvae, and pupae.
Assuming the queen is healthy as the warm weather sets in, the bees will become very active, filling the storage cells with nectar, attending to the brood, and carrying out all the normal activities of the colony. The colony population needs to be big enough to exploit the riotous blooms of spring flowers when the nectar flow reaches its maximum. The growth rate of the colony during the spring may be quite fast, and if the colony is tended by an attentive beekeeper, the colony can simply grow into the new spaces the beekeeper adds to the nest. An unattended nest may swarm if they have overgrown the available space. With a reduced population after the swarm departs and with a new queen at the reproductive helm, the colony begins to grow in number again. In the fall, brood production drops off and the foragers begin to prepare the nest to survive the upcoming winter, maximizing the honey stores needed to sustain the bees when the flowers are gone.
It is not a satisfying answer, but "it depends" is the most accurate. If a colony is being tended by a watchful beekeeper, the colony should not run out of honey. If honey stores are low, the beekeeper can provide honey or sugar syrup to help the bees get through the period of dearth. Feeding bees is a necessary activity in the late winter and early spring in some parts of the country, especially if the beekeeper harvests honey too late in the season, depleting the honey stored for the winter. If the colony is in a natural cavity and it runs out of honey, the bees will not be able to withstand cold temperatures. Without that source of energy to generate metabolic heat to maintain a warm enough temperature in the nest, the bees will die.
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