- Joined
- Nov 6, 2022
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James is correct, according to Tom Seeley (‘p82, The Lives of Bees). After a wild fire consumed 2,500 acres of Cape Point Nature Reserve, three investigators inspected 17 previous nest sites in rock cavities. All 17 colonies were still alive but some had melted propolis at the entrance and some melted combs. They concluded the bees had stoked up with honey and retired as far back as they could, and were then surviving on the honey they had stored while rebuilding the nest - 9as a swarm would do). Seeley wrote that ‘the standard explanation is probably incorrect, as he suspected that it is unlikely a colony threatened by fire can successfully evacuate its nest and fly off thru flames and smoke , especially as its queen is apt to be gravid and so a perilously. clumsy flyer’.The claim is, I believe, that the smoke causes the bees to fill up on food so they have resources available to abscond to a place of safety in the event that a fire approaches their existing home. But as far as I'm aware there's no evidence that such a thing happens in the wild. Wild colonies are as likely to hunker down and hope for the best (and quite possibly die) in the event of a fire. And, if there is a forest fire, how would an animal such as a bee select a place of safety anyhow? It's not as though another hole in a nearby tree would be likely to be safe.
I suspect that to have genuinely developed such a behaviour would have required forest fires to be so common that building a permanent nest of wax wouldn't be a development that evolution would reward.
[Edit: another point, whilst I remember... Laying queens don't fly very well and there's not much point leaving if they can't take the queen with them.]
James
So I stand corrected.
But the commercial view that bees can be smoked without harm to the nest is also wrong - as once the bees has filled with honey after smoking, they cannot continue the normal working of the nest which requires bees of different ages to be spread out to where the tasks appropriate to their ages/gland development require.
Seeley does not suggest how long it takes for bees to empty their honey stomachs and return to their separate tasks - but that could be considerable.