Ideas

[ELizabeth[buzz]]

I was wondering if anyone had anything that they could not explainin beekeeping but could be proven in an expirement. or if there is something you would just like to know. I have to be able to perform the expirement during the fall/winter. So please if you have any thoughts at all reply!!!

 

[RoseCottage]

Elizabeth,
Forgive me for what I am about to type...in-fact, all of you ...

I have wondered for a while whether bees can be right or left handed.

Now I know this sounds absurd but it isn't meant that way. Many animals other than humans have been shown to have a propensity for a primary limb etc. I have often wondered whether this is true of insects and bees in particular.

Do bees have a particular propensity for taking one direction over another when carrying out orientation flights? You may be able to video exiting marked bees to record their behaviour and additionally determine what influences their initial orientation flight direction choice.

It may be heat or light from the sun falling across the hive entrance, it may be magnetism, it may be as simple as wind, it may be the genes of the bees (do offspring of different drones go different ways?), it may be nothing (which in itself would be interesting).

Do bees who re-orientate follow the same choices?


If you could answer this you could educate me, understand factors of bee behaviour, demonstrate your experimentation and analysis skills, and be in-line for an ignoble.

So my suggestion is to investigate whether bees are right or left inclined,

All the best,
Sam

Ps if you one day win an ignoble don't forget to mention me and this forum!

 

[newportbuzz]

i too would like to know if bees are handed.

 

[Poggle]

Did my "girls" actually KNOW I was going to feed them syrup? I have no idea if you can do this indoors over winter but, the other week there I went down to feed them their syrup. i opened the first hive and a cloud of about 100 bees came up to greet me, not anry or pinging but just "looking" at me and slowely flying around. I took the top ot the feeder, waved out the few bees that were in the now empty syrup chamber,picked up the bottle of syrup, undone the top and the bees weny quiet, lots landed on the wooden wall behind the hive and a few actually landed on me, it was as if they were watching and waiting, the bees under the crown board were kinda standing there looking at me through the two slots, when I poured the syrup into the feeder they didn't move but, when I put the feeder lid on, put the super frame back in place and put the lid on, all the bees outside made a dive for the entrance..............I have NO explanation to this at all well, none that I want to admit too on here LOL!!!

 

[Poly Hive]

They do watch for the feed.

When I had an outside feeder at Craibstone with some 60+ colonies being fed internally, in the morning the outside feeder was always empty.

While I poured syrup in I was surrounded in a huge cloud of bees waiting until the float settled and they could get after it.

Please note outside feeding is now strongly disapproved of by reason of disease.

PH

 

[Oandy]

Do Bees turn in one direction when doing the waggle dance? Would this show which hand they use? Is this a waggle dance. Andy

 

[Teemore]

The Rev. Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroff refers in his book to colonies of bees that appeared to associate his visits/inspections with getting a wee feed: it was his practice to give some colonies a spot of honey prior to inspecting them. If I remember correctly, this was part of a process he had to calm an angry colony of bees.

 

[Gardenbees]

I'd be interested to know whether bees get used to a particular beekeeper, either positively (i.e. they know your smell and it doesn't bother them as much as a stranger's) or negatively (i.e. they know your smell and are more likely to attack you than a stranger, because they remember that you're the one who rummages through their broodbox every week!). I'm not sure how you'd control the experiment, given that there are so many things that might make bees more defensive on a particular day, but it would be very interesting to know...

 

[drfraz]

Hi Sam,
Most evidence points towards our social honey bees being right handed, but strangely not solitary bees.

2010 Jan 20;206(2):236-9. Epub 2009 Sep 17.
Behavioural and electrophysiological lateralization in a social (Apis mellifera) but not in a non-social (Osmia cornuta) species of bee.
Anfora G, Frasnelli E, Maccagnani B, Rogers LJ, Vallortigara G.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

I have kept bees most of my life, and am third generation but I have never seen a good feeder solution. I think we could do so much better. I have tried so many over the years with largely disappointing results. I think it the feeders rather than the bees....