Fun additional bee fact! Bee hives have personalities and each hive has a different one! Some hives are very easy going and have no problems being worked. Other hives don’t like to be touched and will get defensive quickly. When working hives, one of the things you look for is bees lining up on the edge of a frame staring you down. If you see that, hit them with some more smoke else you are about to be stung!
Bees navigate using the sun. It doesn’t really seem that they make a map, but more seem to know where they are by the process of directions that got them there. When they return to the hive they just reverse the way they got there. If you stand in front of the entrance to a bee hive for a few minutes then turn around to face away from the hive, you will see a swarm of bees flying in a holding pattern waiting for you to move so they can return. Once you move the entrance to the hive gets really busy. They don’t seem to know to go around you, they just wait till the path is clear!
Here’s another for the road: mites are a big problem for bees. They latch on to the bees and the bees don’t feel them. One way bee keepers can encourage bees to clean themselves and knock off the mites is by covering the bees in powdered sugar! This makes it look like there are a bunch of powder white bees flying around for a while.
Bees are so fricking cool.
Fun additional bee fact! Bee hives have personalities and each hive has a different one! Some hives are very easy going and have no problems being worked. Other hives don’t like to be touched and will get defensive quickly. When working hives, one of the things you look for is bees lining up on the edge of a frame staring you down. If you see that, hit them with some more smoke else you are about to be stung!
Love it! More!!!
Bees navigate using the sun. It doesn’t really seem that they make a map, but more seem to know where they are by the process of directions that got them there. When they return to the hive they just reverse the way they got there. If you stand in front of the entrance to a bee hive for a few minutes then turn around to face away from the hive, you will see a swarm of bees flying in a holding pattern waiting for you to move so they can return. Once you move the entrance to the hive gets really busy. They don’t seem to know to go around you, they just wait till the path is clear!
You realize I would have you posting bee facts all day if I could, right?
Here’s another for the road: mites are a big problem for bees. They latch on to the bees and the bees don’t feel them. One way bee keepers can encourage bees to clean themselves and knock off the mites is by covering the bees in powdered sugar! This makes it look like there are a bunch of powder white bees flying around for a while.
Love it! (Not the mites)
Your comment prompted me to recall a great movie, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Bees_(film)