Dozy dying bees not quite getting home with pollen

[tom8400]

Hi all

Got a bit of a puzzle of the two sites in the garden one of the sites has three hives. There is a lot of dozy and dead bees mostly with pollen, 90% of them are at the back of the hives, most notably on the centre hive some are on top of the hives a few small groups of 10-20 bees but mainly scattered about. It's like as if they have got confused and forgot which way round the hive is and got chilled. However the hives have not moved and the sun has been out today all other hives have been busy and it appears that it's mainly this one hive that has the problem. The pollen is again 90% the same colour but there is some different else I'd start to assume they'd found something that had been sprayed, yet the osr is not in flower and sprays currently being used in agriculture at this time of year are not likely to have an effect on them. Unless they have been in a garden....

Any ideas would be most helpful?

 

[Amari]

Hi all

Got a bit of a puzzle of the two sites in the garden one of the sites has three hives. There is a lot of dozy and dead bees mostly with pollen, 90% of them are at the back of the hives, most notably on the centre hive some are on top of the hives a few small groups of 10-20 bees but mainly scattered about. It's like as if they have got confused and forgot which way round the hive is and got chilled. However the hives have not moved and the sun has been out today all other hives have been busy and it appears that it's mainly this one hive that has the problem. The pollen is again 90% the same colour but there is some different else I'd start to assume they'd found something that had been sprayed, yet the osr is not in flower and sprays currently being used in agriculture at this time of year are not likely to have an effect on them. Unless they have been in a garden....
Any ideas would be most helpful?

I have seven cedar and one poly hive in my main apiary. I often notice bees wandering front back and sides of the poly but I've no explanation.

 

[user 819]

Might just be tired older bees ?

 

[Ian123]

Temperatures are still cool, you’ve got an old workforce struggling home with a payload. Perfectly natural!

 

[Boston Bees]

Hi all

Got a bit of a puzzle of the two sites in the garden one of the sites has three hives. There is a lot of dozy and dead bees mostly with pollen, 90% of them are at the back of the hives, most notably on the centre hive some are on top of the hives a few small groups of 10-20 bees but mainly scattered about. It's like as if they have got confused and forgot which way round the hive is and got chilled. However the hives have not moved and the sun has been out today all other hives have been busy and it appears that it's mainly this one hive that has the problem. The pollen is again 90% the same colour but there is some different else I'd start to assume they'd found something that had been sprayed, yet the osr is not in flower and sprays currently being used in agriculture at this time of year are not likely to have an effect on them. Unless they have been in a garden....

Any ideas would be most helpful?

If you can lean something against the entrance to form a ramp, so that the older workers weighed down with pollen can climb up it if they miss the entrance, that would help a lot.

Small paving slabs - a piece of wood - all sorts of things can do it, depending on what design of hive and stand you have.

Paynes poly hives don't need this as they have such a large landing board. But most hive types don't have much of a landing board, and some are quite high up on stands with nothing to allow bees to climb up to the entrance. Remember that bees are used to trees (or chimneys!), with a nice vertical landing board that goes all the way to the floor

Every little helps at this time of year. Nothing sadder than an old bee that can't make the final hop from the floor up to the hive entrance due to all the pollen it is carrying.

 

[tom8400]

Thank you hopefully your all correct bit odd how it's mainly the same hive

 

[Sayle]

If you can lean something against the entrance to form a ramp, so that the older workers weighed down with pollen can climb up it if they miss the entrance, that would help a lot.

Small paving slabs - a piece of wood - all sorts of things can do it, depending on what design of hive and stand you have.

Paynes poly hives don't need this as they have such a large landing board. But most hive types don't have much of a landing board, and some are quite high up on stands with nothing to allow bees to climb up to the entrance. Remember that bees are used to trees (or chimneys!), with a nice vertical landing board that goes all the way to the floor

Every little helps at this time of year. Nothing sadder than an old bee that can't make the final hop from the floor up to the hive entrance due to all the pollen it is carrying.

This is an interesting idea - I had a major ant problem with the little fellas figuring out that climbing up the legs and over the crown board would let them at the sugar syrup, and so I made a moat of oil they couldn't cross. So my first instinct would be that providing a route up onto the landing board would let that problem re-occur. Now I realise the ants probably wouldn't be able to get at any stores in the hive itself, especially now insulation is in the top between them and any feed, but the perfectionist in me twitches at the idea of seeing ants on the hive itself. If I kept ants I would be cheering them on, but I'm not.

I do sometimes see dead bees with pollen on their legs near the hive, having flunked the landing on the sloped landing board (20 degrees, which I now think was too much when they belly-slam onto it when loaded down - on the plus side the attempted robbing of the very weak swarm that lives there meant the moment the attackers were grappled with they and the guard went somersaulting off it to the ground...), and I do see bees end up dropping to the ground beneath. Usually they rest for a minute or two and then re-attempt, but if they're so knackered they can't...well, that's curtains. I console myself with the thought that the graveyard in front of the landing board is most certainly lazy corpse-disposal and those that can't get back were doomed to go the same way.

tl'dr: I condemn some bees to death for my peace of mind in regards to ants. On occasion if I see any still alive I do coax them onto my finger or a stick and deposit them at the entrance. For the hive one bee means nothing, but it makes me feel better.

But the idea of letting them climb up the front like from the bottom of a tree trunk up...I have to admit, I'm intriuged. If I could guarantee no ants squeeze through the cracks of the boxes and annoy the girls, I may try a legless variant. The best compromise may be a very gently sloping landing board to keep the water off (maybe a matter of only 2-5 degrees) with a substantial lip. The current one is probably only half a foot long, but maybe the proper slab will allow even the clumsy ones to have a walking route to the entrance.

If they can't even remember which side the hole is on though, that's their problem.