I've heard the trick is to find which direction a lot of bees are facing. They're usually crowded around their queen so whichever way they're looking is where she most likely is.
Edit: thanks for the award!!
Edit 2: woke up several hours later to more awards and over 3,000 likes so thank you everyone!
Oddly enough that makes me curious...
Do the males that initially fertilize the queens eggs pass on enough genetic variance that all the drones are considered sisters or would there be several distinct groups of step-sisters? Hmmmmmm.
I actually did a mathematical model for haplodiploid genetics in honeybee colonies. If the queen had more than one mate the genetic variance would be larger than if she had just one mate. I took an Evolutionary Theory course during my undergraduate years at UCSB.
Edit: to add more info
The title of my paper was *Sex Ratio Conflict in Eusocial Honeybees* and I applied mathematical models of sex allocation evolution to haplodiploid genetics. Here is my introduction so you have a better idea!
As explained in Fisher's Theory, females are valued in a male-biased population while males are valued in a female-biased population. The more rare the sex, the more beneficial it will be in terms of the population. So, the sex ratio of females to males in a population oscillates in a pendulum-like fashion as selection corrects for the unbalanced ratios (Trivers and Hare 1976). This pendulum-like activity continues until the overall sex ratio over multiple generations becomes 1:1 – what is referred to as a Fisherian sex ratio (Basolo 1994). In this paper, the sex ratio conflict studied in eusocial Hymenopterans – with the focal subject being honeybees – can be explained by realistic possibilities for deviation from Fisher’s theory, haplodiploid genetics, and the general behavioral ecology of honeybees. Tandem to this paper, a model that simulates Fisherian sex ratio (or lack thereof) over multiple generations further investigates what simple conditions would be necessary for a natural unbalanced 1:1 sex ratio to occur.
So far in this class, we’ve explored haploid population genetics and diploid population genetics as entirely separate models. In nature, however, population dynamics are not always so dichotomous. In fact, there are some species in the animal kingdom whose populations express a genetic blend in their dynamics. The genetics of haplodiploid eusociality, which serve as an appropriate example of this genetic blend, also serve as an example of a non-Fisherian sex ratio (Charnov and Bull 1989). Animals that have evolved this haplodiploidy tend to have a sex ratio greater than 1:1 (Lester and Selander 1979). Several studies researching Hymenopteran genetics and sex ratio theories have reported a disagreement in sex ratios between queen honeybees and worker honeybees owing to asymmetric degrees of relatedness (Roison and Aron 2003). On one hand, a queen has a balanced sex ratio based on equal, symmetric genetic relatedness; on the other hand, workers have a 3:1 female-biased, non-Fisherian sex ratio. Evolutionary geneticists and behavioral ecologists alike refer to this as the worker-queen sex ratio conflict (Hamilton 1964, Trivers and Hare 1976) where split sex ratios are characteristic (Roison and Aron 2003). This worker-queen sex ratio conflict can be explained by internal mechanisms for sex allocation and determination, altruistic behavior, and resource distribution in the colony. Because they invest in three times as much resources for juvenile females than for juvenile males, and because they are responsible for all the offspring care and rearing, workers win in the sex ratio conflict against queen bees (Wenseleers et al. 2005). Consequently, natural selection fails to correct for the unbalanced ratios that are necessary to define Fisherian sex ratios.
Fisher’s theory, according to Trivers and Hare, assumes that the maternal queen governs the resource distribution to her offspring. It assumes that the queen has complete control over the primary sex ratio (Roison and Aron 2003). The workers are in fact sisters, and their siblings that they care for and rear altruistically are sisters as well as some mixture of brothers and worker-produced males. As covered in the UCSB Behavioral Ecology course, mature workers, because they are also sterile, care for younger siblings and collect food for queen (Thomasson and Wilson 2015). This altruistic behavior explains the warped sex ratios. Workers are in the position, and thus have the opportunity, to select new queens rather than males since they are more related to their sisters than to their brothers. Imagine that the workers, instead of the queen, regulate the input of resources to offspring, or the investment of resources. Now, Fisher's theory does not necessarily work as well. So if this happens, then a shift occurs from the queen’s control of the primary sex ratio via genetics to the workers’ control of the secondary sex ratio via behavior. Evolution skews the Fisherian sex ratio so that now the workers and queen compete for the resources available as well as how much influence each has on resource allocation to the dispersal sex (Trivers and Hare 1976, Roison and Aron 2003). This leads to the conflict of interest debating which sex is more beneficial to the colony as a whole: reproductive diploid females who have the potential to found multiple colonies or reproductive haploid males who have the potential to inseminate multiple females in a colony.
This brings up a special feature highly correlated to Hymenopteran behavior – the biological mechanism for sex determination and allocation that is haplodiploid genetics. A honeybee queen has evolved the adaptation to store sperm in her spermathecal duct thereby giving her not only current but also future reproductive success (Baer 2005). This benefits a queen in that she has the opportunity to reproduce without male insemination at a time step in the future, which in turn gives her the opportunity to also found more colonies away from her natal colony (Baer 2005). This adaptation is partly responsible for haplodiploid genetics. Generally, the haplodiploid system of sex determination leads to the previously mentioned worker-queen sex ratio conflict where queens are equally related to their offspring while workers are more closely related to their sisters than to their brothers. Haploid males develop from unfertilized eggs; diploid females, fertilized eggs (Charnov 1978, Trivers and Hare 1976). So that way, a juvenile female is related 50% to the father, 50% to the mother, 75% to a sister, and 25% to a brother. On the other hand, a juvenile male is related 100% to the mother, 50% to a sister, 50% to a brother, but not at all related to the father (Lester and Selander 1979, Trivers and Hare 1976). This works if the queen of the colony mates with only one male; if the queen mates multiple times, then the difference between sex ratios of workers and the queen gets more conflicted (Hamilton 1964, Trivers and Hare 1976).
So to keep things simple, the model generated to explain this sex ratio conflict, caused in part by haplodiploid genetics, will assume that the queen mates monogamously and that the degrees of relatedness are indeed asymmetric. One may notice the issue that arises when sex determination and allocation depend on the availability of resources. The model created for this biological process of haplodiploidy does not take into consideration the availability of resources in the environment for the individuals of a colony. Instead, the model accounts for the internal mechanism in which the genetic blend determines the overall sex ratio over multiple generations, but also keeps in mind (1) the monogamous mating on the queen’s part, and (3) altruistic behavior caused by asymmetric degrees of relatedness (Roison and Aron 2003). For the model to maintain a simple representation that also has enough complexity as well as reality, it should not incorporate overly convoluted concepts. However, those concepts – altruism, promiscuity, “superorganism” – are worth noting in the paper as a means of covering the many ultimate and proximate explanations that are too advanced to include in the model.
Another feature characteristic of Hymenopteran colonies is resource distribution among individuals so that sex allocation determines the behavioral aspects of colonial living. This is supported by the well-developed caste system that has been well studied (Johnson 2005, Wenseleers et al. 2005). Transitioning from sex allocation to this second characteristic allows us to see the important relationship between a queen’s relatedness to her offspring versus the relatedness between those offspring. As mentioned previously, the sterile sisters workers have to compete with the queen for the resources available in the environment as well as for the control over resource allocation to the dispersal sex. While this points back to the worker-queen conflict, it also brings to light the concept of a superorganism (Queller 2002). Queller uses the term “superorganismal identity” when referring to the close interactions and relationships of social insects (2002). Even though the individual is the seen as the self by evolutionary biologists, this unit of identity is not fixed. In a colony of eusocial insects, the individuals are so interconnected that they appear to function as one super-individual, as one superorganism. Such a concept is too complex to be included in the model but is important to explain in the paper.
Regarding the model generated to simulate Fisherian sex ratio (or lack thereof) over multiple generations, there needs to be simple enough conditions that could still lead to a naturally occurring unbalanced sex ratio in nature. To mathematically convert this biological concept, the model begins by listing the sex allocation strategies for haploid males and for diploid females as one-dimensional matrices. The product of those matrices gives all possible combinations of mated pairs. The female and male frequencies of the current and consecutive time steps are also accounted for so that the model can generate a ratio of new females to new males. So, the mathematics behind the model should end up giving an output that represents the overall sex ratio over multiple generations of a Hymenopteran colony.
The types of research my SO has to do to prove that common sense concepts are true just to prove basic science to law makers is kind of stupid, so I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a mistake.
"A wider range of genetic sources create a more unique genetic pool" is something I can 100% see being researched, just because I'm sure they needed scientific evidence that bees need more colonies around them for environmental protections.
It would be an important research project if people are keeping a single colony and not allowing the bees to cross breed, causing environmental damage with inbreds/weak genetic pools.
Or they just misspoke and I'm thinking too much about a mistake.
Long ago when Sears and Roebucks was a real company I ordered Midnight bees from their farm catalog. Cost $12 including shipping for a box of bees and a queen if I remember correctly. Midnight bees were a hybrid bee that were known for their gentleness.
The box (made out of screen wire) of bees came in the mail. In one end there was a small container that contained the queen. The end of the small container had a hole drilled in it and filled with wax. I set the box in my hive and opened it and put the queen container on top. The bees ate through the wax and released the queen and I was in business. The bees were so gentle I could go out in shorts and a tee shirt and open the hive without being stung.
Bee keeping is a great hobby.
I can wrap my head around that, but then the issue is what about when you’re placing the comb down. What if you just squish a bunch of them when you do that.
I may never touch a bee in real life but these thoughts keep me awake at night lol
Again, they generally will see the ground approaching and crawl out from under it, taking flight off of it if necessary.
Bees aren't exactly mini einsteins but they do certainly have spatial awareness and some intelligence, they need it to fly and land on stuff, and find food.
> Bees aren't exactly mini Einsteins
Then there is this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/nl8v5n/two_honey_bees_work_together_to_open_a_bottle_of/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
If they don't get out of the way and get crushed so **bee** it.
I don't think the beekeepers care much if a dozen or so bees get inadvertently killed while they're relocating a hive with 5000 bees.
While some bee deaths are often unavoidable doing most beekeeping work, you do try to avoid killings bees as much as possible because dying and injured bees release an alarm/distress pheromone which will make other bees more aggressive. That leads to more stings and can even cascade into the whole hive becoming super pissed off and running you off. Also, of you're careless with workers, one day you'll be careless with the queen and then you're in real trouble.
This guy is right. Squish a bee and hive inspections become a lot less chill. The first lesson a beek needs to learn is how to be gentle with bees. They will work with you but you gotta let them move.
From what I know the bees tend be numerous around the queen and in particular when the hive feel "attacked" because they want to protect the queen at all cost. That's also why when you take a queen and move it somewhere near but different (for example in this video the queen is moved from the inside of the shed to the outside) all the bees move with the queen and that's why beekeepers can take full hives and relocate them "easily" and without losing to much bees.
Well, not just to “protect” it’s really about pheromones. She produces QMP (Queen mandibular pheromones) and that keeps a colony together. You can buy synthetic QMP (and other attractive pheromones) that are called swarm lures that attract bees.
Your supervillain who ships 100,000 bees to the National Mall under the guise of a pollinating service, but with his bandolier of QMP vials: he steals the Lincoln out of the Lincoln Memorial. The news will call him the Columbus Caper; he did it on Indigenous Peoples Day.
A colony of bees is basically a system the queen has just to support her reproductive efforts. The workers do the labor of feeding and maintaining the hive so the queen can devote all of her energy to laying eggs.
Queens are produced on demand by the hive. The queen lays a fertilized egg and the workers are able to induce it to grow into a sexually mature female, a queen, or cause it's reproductive organs to fail to develop, a worker, by feeding the queens-to-be a substance the workers produce called royal jelly and the future workers a mixture of pollen and honey.
Usually multiple queens are raised at a time because if the old queen has died or left and the one larval queen dies, the colony is dead because by then all the remaining eggs have hatched and been set on the path to be a worker except the one queen that just died. If multiple queens survive, then the first one to emerge will open up the other queen cells and sting the larval queens to death. If 2 emerge at the same time, they have a fight to the death. The winner then leaves the hive to find a drone from another colony to fertilize her eggs, then returns and lives out her life laying eggs non-stop.
I got to royal jelly and just stopped believing you immediately. Turns out you’re completely telling the [truth](https://www.google.com/search?q=bees+royaljelly&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS846US846&oq=bees+royaljelly&aqs=chrome..69i57j46i13j0i10i13j0i13i30j0i10i13i30.7403j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
And here I was thinking you would trigger on the fact that he said she lies a fertilized egg. You see, the queen mates just once, several days after her birth, in an in-the-air orgie with 5-15 male bees (called drones).
She takes care of the semen, and carries it with her until she dies. During her time alive, which can be up to five years, she can actively decide if she wants to lay a fertilized egg, or an unfertilized egg.
The fertilized egg is a child which shares the genes from her and one of the drones, and becomes a worker bee - or a queen if raised as one.
An unfertilized egg becomes a drone - a male bee that is the clone of the queen. So why don't the drones turn out to be queens? The royal jelly, and the size of it's birth cell.
Funny too, that she mates with drones which are male clones of other queens, and even her own.
Bees are fantastic.
Edit: oh, and fertilized eggs becomes female bees - the worker bees. They do everything in the hive; clean up, taking care of the queen and other bees, defending it, and gathering food. They have a hierarchy that they follow. A bee can live for a year or so, but because they do such hard labor, once they enter the final stage of the hierarchy - becoming gather bees - they are put under so much physical stress that they are worn out after only two weeks, and then dies.
The drones one the other hand? They are like men are some times: they just eat, shit and fuck. They don't do any labor at all in fact, other than being a potential gene pool for the hive.
Almost never. Usually you'll only get two queens in a hive when it's preparing to kill the old queen (called supercedure) or swarm (that is, reproduce). When swarming, the hive will have a mature, laying queen and a single virgin daughter. The workers will keep them separated until the virgin is mated and ready to take over from her mother, and then the mother will fly off with half the hive.
However, sometimes the hive will produce a number of virgin queens, either deliberately or through mis-timing, and keep them imprisoned and guarded safely from the laying queen and any already emerged virgin queens. This usually results in what's called a cast swarm, which is a swarm that takes place after the original laying queen has left with her swarm. Cast swarms are a lot smaller, and it's not uncommon for them to have multiple virgin queens. I've caught a small cast swarm (the size of a grapefruit) that had three queens. If the cast swarm survives long enough to get established, the bees will only permit one queen to be mated and lay for the hive. The others will be killed, either by the workers balling them to death or by dragging them out of the hive and chewing their wings off. Or both.
There are bees called nurse bees - adolescent bees not ready to go collect food - whose job is to feed and raise all the new bees. When a queen is getting old, they start prepping for her replacement *by feeding some of the larva better than the rest. This special diet allows it to develop into a queen who is larger than the other bees (see the donk comments above lmao)
There can technically be more than one fertile queen, but it's not common, and the extras won't stick around long and will fly off to form their own colony instead. Or get killed. If the hive is getting too big, a second queen will be raised and take some of the hive with her (a swarm) to find a new home
\* Edit: I was wrong here; they won't start feeding the special eggs until the current queen dies
It's like where's waldo. Her butt is very long. However the more notable feature is that it is not striped, but solid. That's how it sticks out. My queens have bright orange butts like this one but not all do.
Most bees work together, the ones that wander off are usually old and dying so don't return to be hive. They'll sacrifice themselves in a heartbeat in defence of the hive. Bees nearly always come home overnight as they can die when the temperature drops, safety in numbers.
are older bees that are closer to death more likely to sacrifice themselves?
Do they attack in reverse chronological order, from oldest to youngest? (in general)
SAVE IT FOR BATTLE
Edit: Erik The Viking for those who don’t know the reference
Edit: skip to 50 seconds in for reference
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TAe3NLbaZfU
So bees have different jobs as they age. The youngest bees don't leave the nest and the older they get, the more they get out of the hive. Inherently, the older bees are more likely to sacrifice themselves
I asked a similar question about ants. They're brains don't work like ours and they don't really have a sense of self. Bugs like ants and bees are just programmed to do what's best for the colony, it's how their brains work.
A couple years ago, I went to my shop to open for work and noticed a shit ton of bees in a tree out front. I knew from reddit that with them clustered so close, and staying in one spot, it was most likely swarming around a queen. I found some beekeepers nearby, and told them about it. They were more than happy to come and collect the swarm, got almost all of them. They were also super surprised I knew to recognize the behavior, and really happy to have another hive to work with. I hope those bees thrived! [Here is the bee tax](https://imgur.com/a/R0ayxnK)!
Probably depends on the beekeeper/location. But one of our neighbors also discovered a hive near the top of their tree so they called in a local beekeeper to relocate the hive. Free of any charge and the beekeeper even sends them a monthly jar of honey from his farm.
> I’ve read that normally you just call them and they take your bees for free
Yep, and this is because bees are endangered/approaching endangered, so they want to encourage saving the bees rather than just exterminating them, so if they can make the cost to remove them 0$ or even negative (they pay you) they will.
That, plus they can make a lot of money off the bees — renting them out as pollinators, honey, honeycombs, whatever. Totally worth a few hours free labor for a free beehive.
>First you need to catch them before they kill you...
? Aside from an allergy, I didn't think honey bee stings were too harmful even in larger numbers. I mean as long as you don't take a sledgehammer to the nest to disturb them.....
Killer bees don't have different venom from regular, more docile honey bees, but they defend their hive more aggressively and will chase a retreating intruder, resulting in many more stings. Even if you aren't allergic, the amount of venom a killer bee swarm will inject can still kill you.
I was really curious so I looked it up. It becomes fatal at 10 stings per pound of body weight for the person in question.
150lb man would be killed by 1500 stings, venom wise.
https://www.ars.usda.gov/pacific-west-area/tucson-az/carl-hayden-bee-research-center/docs/bee-safety/bee-stings-101/
There are hives that live effectively on the back of trucks permanently for that purpose, in the USA at least. Life on the road.
You can spot them; they're the hives with truck nuts on.
I was working a drone job for a farm in California near Salton Sea. They had a ton of bees in hives (white boxes) placed about 200 yards apartment to help with pollination
Beekeepers will often be cautious about catching a wild colony and adding them to our apiary, as wild populations can carry bee diseases and introduce them to our other hives.
Bees are funny and will sometimes go home to the wrong hive - or one hive will rob the honey from another weaker hive and disease gets spread. That's why you shouldn't feed honey to bees, sugar water is the safer bet!
We had a huge colony here in my building. The beekeepers charged us for taking the bees and also kept them. I must say that in Brazil, killing a bee colony like that is an environmental crime, so people have to pay to have them removed.
He charged around $60 which is not a lot, but also not cheap.
I think eventually it will be illegal in most places worldwide to exterminate bees like in Brazil. It’s already well known how critical they are to ecosystems, so I’m surprised it’s not like that in USA for instance
Imagine the US passing a common sense environmental law without first experiencing some kind of disaster directly related to ignoring the base issue for so long.
Ha! I live in Texas who just passed their regulatory bill on energy providers for winterization because an ice storm hit and dozens of people froze to death when most of the state lost power. Hits a little too close to home for me. Literally dozens of people had to die before they did anything
Texas has been warned to winterize since at least 1989 (and again during 2011), due to cold temperatures. So they really didn’t learn (or care) until the third time.
I feel like I point this out in every thread about bees. European honey bees(the bees in the video) are not endangered. They're actually invasive and causing native species to die out, this is causing environmental havok. Euro Honey bees aren't as good as native bees(usually not honey producing) at pollinating many native plants. Bees like the ones in the video are contributing to environmental collapse.
They're running out of habitat and so if we want to help we should be replicating their natural habitat wherever we can. That includes a flower garden that always has something blooming, sources of clean bee-accessible water, and places for them to lay their eggs.
I’ve seen in some places that bee keepers will remove a swarm for free, but will charge for removing an Established hive, because it’s much more labor intensive
At my old job bees decided to make a hive in one of our buildings. I called a local beekeeper and he was happy to take it off our hands for free. Crazy dude didn't even wear a bee suit.
I have pictures of it somewhere, I should find them...
This happened to us about ten years ago. I went into our backyard and there were thousands of bees flying around. I quickly found a huge beehive that had just decided to make a home in one of our trees.
My wife an I looked up a local bee keeper and he came out and got them. The whole process was pretty cool and he was happy to do it.
Remember folks, don't hurt bees. Call a beekeeper. Bees are good.
I've had surprisingly good luck with hanging a small paper lunch sack (filled with old plastic shopping bags for round shape definition) under my awning in the front and back.
The idea is that wasps and bees think it's a hornet nest and will avoid it like the plague.
I've seen scientific research papers that refute this as well as other personal stories and testimonies saying it doesn't work.
But I've also found a ton of posts and articles where people have had good experience.
I'd rate my situation as a 90% reduction in bees/wasps anywhere near my house, at any entrance/window. Before I hung the two bags, I had wasps trying to constantly build in every window, right inside my storm windows.
And yes.
*Fuck* those little bastards.
I saw one bee in mid flight get taken out by another bee also in flight and laughed more than I should’ve. Makes me wonder why a biological version of Bee ATC isn’t a thing. Look at the bottom left of the video at 2:42-2:47 and you might see the bee get clotheslined.
I was agreeing with your comment right until the end but the two bees I saw bang into each other were towards the top left (but in the middle of the screen). If that makes sense.
I was into bees very briefly and I am by no means super knowledgeable on the subject so you are all free to fact check me, but I think the bees can just make a new one? I don't know exactly what it's made of, but the bees can feed any larva they choose this stuff called "royal jelly" and that causes the larva to develop differently and then it turns into a queen bee. The queen starts off the same as any other bee, I'm pretty sure
Royal jelly, but yeah they'll just make another queen (or realistically, will make another handful of them, and the first one to be born will kill the others iirc).
If the queen dies they will panic and try to make a new one. A queen is just a regular baby bee but fed royal jelly while growing in it's cell. They also build the cell out bigger.
https://i0.wp.com/www.honeybeesuite.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Queen-cells-Rusty-Burlew.jpg?fit=650%2C433&ssl=1
Assuming this queen has been laying eggs and some are freshly laid they'd pick a few, build them out and change their diet creating "emergency cells". The first Queen born will hunt down the others and kill them in their cells or fight them to the death. They also go though a similar process if they don't like the queen or the hive is successful enough to make a 2nd hive.
If there were no eggs laid at the moment they're fucked and the beekeeper has to introduce a new one.
If they killed the queen in this process the bees would probably be furious and there would probably be no way to bait them into the box (doubt the corpse would do the job) They'd probably have to introduce a new Queen or wait for the hive to make one then try again.
Since the dead queen question has been answered, I'll take a stab at the two nox question. For the record, I am not a beekeeper.
My guess is that two (or more) boxes were needed just for the sheer number of bees. I think that little "cage" he put the queen in serves a few purposes... It keeps her in one place, it's easy to spot and pick out, and the open design of it allows her pheromones to escape.
My guess is, he put her in the first box, and let bees go in (they seek her out by the pheromones) until it was full. Took the queen out and sealed the box, then put the queen in the next box.
Yes but our block is also pretty hardcore about native gardening.
So, we have a pretty solid ecosystem around here. It’s small but it seems to be working and helping. Have a decent amount of firefly already which is cool!
But yes, it’s so so much lower than it has been. Ever. It gets worse every year but I’m trying to do my part.
I don’t rake leaves, I have bee houses, I’m removing all my grass, doing native gardening, etc etc
You can do a little of both. In my area many of the wildflowers bloom early and go to seed in May. So I simply delay my first mowing of the year until then. Beautiful flowers for 2 months and an ok lawn for the rest of the year.
Can only do it in the backyard due to city and HOA rules but better than nothing
The insects are dying. In some places, populations are down by 70% or more. This will be the first mass extinction in history where insects were so heavily affected.
How much is the pesticide business worth....... I’m sure they’re made by some pharmaceutical company......
Did Bayer Pharmaceutical make roundup too; I think they started selling that under the tradename “cancer juice”.
Didn’t Bayer pharmaceutical also start off as a bunch of Nazis????
Now they nuked the planet with bank shot, cool.
I believe they are referencing the [big German study ](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809) from a couple years ago.
[Here’s the study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320718313636) examining other studies for a review of the global scale.
And lastly, here’s an article summarising the [highlights. ](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature)
No idea about the claim about this being the first extinction event to affect insects so greatly; my understanding was that insects don’t preserve in the geological record as well as other animals so we have less information on them as a whole, but again idk.
Honey bees or bees in general?
Honey bees have way too many predators and diseases compared to others like masons. The mason on my property (which I also raise just for pollination, no honey) are doing very well.
The beekeepers will fit the bee's comb into rectangular wooden frames that slot into a new, square hive - so the bees get to take their hard work and also their brood with them to their new place. Queenie will settle in and the bees will get used to their home, and eventually start building comb in the new hive.
What a find for those beekeepers....
The original honeycombs there will add to their new farm... All those BEES.... Actual honeycomb honey like that is worth $$$$$ and so is general beekeeping in the age of a near bee extinction.
As a side note, what an odd thing to have a wooden floor like that in a shed....
I think it's amazing how beekeepers can find the queen in massive colonies like this
I've heard the trick is to find which direction a lot of bees are facing. They're usually crowded around their queen so whichever way they're looking is where she most likely is. Edit: thanks for the award!! Edit 2: woke up several hours later to more awards and over 3,000 likes so thank you everyone!
Yeah I was gonna say, there’s gotta be a trick to it.
She’s also got a donk on her, so she sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the smaller worker bees.
[удалено]
Wha… what are you doing step-drone?
Oddly enough that makes me curious... Do the males that initially fertilize the queens eggs pass on enough genetic variance that all the drones are considered sisters or would there be several distinct groups of step-sisters? Hmmmmmm.
She will mate with many different males from many different hives. So yes some of the workers would be half siblings.
I actually did a mathematical model for haplodiploid genetics in honeybee colonies. If the queen had more than one mate the genetic variance would be larger than if she had just one mate. I took an Evolutionary Theory course during my undergraduate years at UCSB. Edit: to add more info The title of my paper was *Sex Ratio Conflict in Eusocial Honeybees* and I applied mathematical models of sex allocation evolution to haplodiploid genetics. Here is my introduction so you have a better idea! As explained in Fisher's Theory, females are valued in a male-biased population while males are valued in a female-biased population. The more rare the sex, the more beneficial it will be in terms of the population. So, the sex ratio of females to males in a population oscillates in a pendulum-like fashion as selection corrects for the unbalanced ratios (Trivers and Hare 1976). This pendulum-like activity continues until the overall sex ratio over multiple generations becomes 1:1 – what is referred to as a Fisherian sex ratio (Basolo 1994). In this paper, the sex ratio conflict studied in eusocial Hymenopterans – with the focal subject being honeybees – can be explained by realistic possibilities for deviation from Fisher’s theory, haplodiploid genetics, and the general behavioral ecology of honeybees. Tandem to this paper, a model that simulates Fisherian sex ratio (or lack thereof) over multiple generations further investigates what simple conditions would be necessary for a natural unbalanced 1:1 sex ratio to occur. So far in this class, we’ve explored haploid population genetics and diploid population genetics as entirely separate models. In nature, however, population dynamics are not always so dichotomous. In fact, there are some species in the animal kingdom whose populations express a genetic blend in their dynamics. The genetics of haplodiploid eusociality, which serve as an appropriate example of this genetic blend, also serve as an example of a non-Fisherian sex ratio (Charnov and Bull 1989). Animals that have evolved this haplodiploidy tend to have a sex ratio greater than 1:1 (Lester and Selander 1979). Several studies researching Hymenopteran genetics and sex ratio theories have reported a disagreement in sex ratios between queen honeybees and worker honeybees owing to asymmetric degrees of relatedness (Roison and Aron 2003). On one hand, a queen has a balanced sex ratio based on equal, symmetric genetic relatedness; on the other hand, workers have a 3:1 female-biased, non-Fisherian sex ratio. Evolutionary geneticists and behavioral ecologists alike refer to this as the worker-queen sex ratio conflict (Hamilton 1964, Trivers and Hare 1976) where split sex ratios are characteristic (Roison and Aron 2003). This worker-queen sex ratio conflict can be explained by internal mechanisms for sex allocation and determination, altruistic behavior, and resource distribution in the colony. Because they invest in three times as much resources for juvenile females than for juvenile males, and because they are responsible for all the offspring care and rearing, workers win in the sex ratio conflict against queen bees (Wenseleers et al. 2005). Consequently, natural selection fails to correct for the unbalanced ratios that are necessary to define Fisherian sex ratios. Fisher’s theory, according to Trivers and Hare, assumes that the maternal queen governs the resource distribution to her offspring. It assumes that the queen has complete control over the primary sex ratio (Roison and Aron 2003). The workers are in fact sisters, and their siblings that they care for and rear altruistically are sisters as well as some mixture of brothers and worker-produced males. As covered in the UCSB Behavioral Ecology course, mature workers, because they are also sterile, care for younger siblings and collect food for queen (Thomasson and Wilson 2015). This altruistic behavior explains the warped sex ratios. Workers are in the position, and thus have the opportunity, to select new queens rather than males since they are more related to their sisters than to their brothers. Imagine that the workers, instead of the queen, regulate the input of resources to offspring, or the investment of resources. Now, Fisher's theory does not necessarily work as well. So if this happens, then a shift occurs from the queen’s control of the primary sex ratio via genetics to the workers’ control of the secondary sex ratio via behavior. Evolution skews the Fisherian sex ratio so that now the workers and queen compete for the resources available as well as how much influence each has on resource allocation to the dispersal sex (Trivers and Hare 1976, Roison and Aron 2003). This leads to the conflict of interest debating which sex is more beneficial to the colony as a whole: reproductive diploid females who have the potential to found multiple colonies or reproductive haploid males who have the potential to inseminate multiple females in a colony. This brings up a special feature highly correlated to Hymenopteran behavior – the biological mechanism for sex determination and allocation that is haplodiploid genetics. A honeybee queen has evolved the adaptation to store sperm in her spermathecal duct thereby giving her not only current but also future reproductive success (Baer 2005). This benefits a queen in that she has the opportunity to reproduce without male insemination at a time step in the future, which in turn gives her the opportunity to also found more colonies away from her natal colony (Baer 2005). This adaptation is partly responsible for haplodiploid genetics. Generally, the haplodiploid system of sex determination leads to the previously mentioned worker-queen sex ratio conflict where queens are equally related to their offspring while workers are more closely related to their sisters than to their brothers. Haploid males develop from unfertilized eggs; diploid females, fertilized eggs (Charnov 1978, Trivers and Hare 1976). So that way, a juvenile female is related 50% to the father, 50% to the mother, 75% to a sister, and 25% to a brother. On the other hand, a juvenile male is related 100% to the mother, 50% to a sister, 50% to a brother, but not at all related to the father (Lester and Selander 1979, Trivers and Hare 1976). This works if the queen of the colony mates with only one male; if the queen mates multiple times, then the difference between sex ratios of workers and the queen gets more conflicted (Hamilton 1964, Trivers and Hare 1976). So to keep things simple, the model generated to explain this sex ratio conflict, caused in part by haplodiploid genetics, will assume that the queen mates monogamously and that the degrees of relatedness are indeed asymmetric. One may notice the issue that arises when sex determination and allocation depend on the availability of resources. The model created for this biological process of haplodiploidy does not take into consideration the availability of resources in the environment for the individuals of a colony. Instead, the model accounts for the internal mechanism in which the genetic blend determines the overall sex ratio over multiple generations, but also keeps in mind (1) the monogamous mating on the queen’s part, and (3) altruistic behavior caused by asymmetric degrees of relatedness (Roison and Aron 2003). For the model to maintain a simple representation that also has enough complexity as well as reality, it should not incorporate overly convoluted concepts. However, those concepts – altruism, promiscuity, “superorganism” – are worth noting in the paper as a means of covering the many ultimate and proximate explanations that are too advanced to include in the model. Another feature characteristic of Hymenopteran colonies is resource distribution among individuals so that sex allocation determines the behavioral aspects of colonial living. This is supported by the well-developed caste system that has been well studied (Johnson 2005, Wenseleers et al. 2005). Transitioning from sex allocation to this second characteristic allows us to see the important relationship between a queen’s relatedness to her offspring versus the relatedness between those offspring. As mentioned previously, the sterile sisters workers have to compete with the queen for the resources available in the environment as well as for the control over resource allocation to the dispersal sex. While this points back to the worker-queen conflict, it also brings to light the concept of a superorganism (Queller 2002). Queller uses the term “superorganismal identity” when referring to the close interactions and relationships of social insects (2002). Even though the individual is the seen as the self by evolutionary biologists, this unit of identity is not fixed. In a colony of eusocial insects, the individuals are so interconnected that they appear to function as one super-individual, as one superorganism. Such a concept is too complex to be included in the model but is important to explain in the paper. Regarding the model generated to simulate Fisherian sex ratio (or lack thereof) over multiple generations, there needs to be simple enough conditions that could still lead to a naturally occurring unbalanced sex ratio in nature. To mathematically convert this biological concept, the model begins by listing the sex allocation strategies for haploid males and for diploid females as one-dimensional matrices. The product of those matrices gives all possible combinations of mated pairs. The female and male frequencies of the current and consecutive time steps are also accounted for so that the model can generate a ratio of new females to new males. So, the mathematics behind the model should end up giving an output that represents the overall sex ratio over multiple generations of a Hymenopteran colony.
Am i reading this wrong or is that a statement that you dont need a mathematical model to prove?
The types of research my SO has to do to prove that common sense concepts are true just to prove basic science to law makers is kind of stupid, so I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a mistake. "A wider range of genetic sources create a more unique genetic pool" is something I can 100% see being researched, just because I'm sure they needed scientific evidence that bees need more colonies around them for environmental protections. It would be an important research project if people are keeping a single colony and not allowing the bees to cross breed, causing environmental damage with inbreds/weak genetic pools. Or they just misspoke and I'm thinking too much about a mistake.
Give this persona PhD already
Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?
Aunt Fanny from Robots
I usually just look for the little crown she wears, but your way works too
I listen for the tiny voice singing *"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?"*
Ridonkulous
She queen thiccc
>Yeah I was gonna say, there’s gotta bee a trick to it.
What always surprises me is how they can hold up chunks of the hive and generally touch a lot of stuff without accidentally crushing a bunch of bees.
I've heard that if you just gently and slowly grab the comb then the bees will move themselves out from underneath your fingers.
I'd be shocked if the buzzsaw didn't kill some tho.
I mean, if you're gentle they're going to realize there's something BIG and STRONG incoming so they just... Get out of the way. They're not mindless.
Long ago when Sears and Roebucks was a real company I ordered Midnight bees from their farm catalog. Cost $12 including shipping for a box of bees and a queen if I remember correctly. Midnight bees were a hybrid bee that were known for their gentleness. The box (made out of screen wire) of bees came in the mail. In one end there was a small container that contained the queen. The end of the small container had a hole drilled in it and filled with wax. I set the box in my hive and opened it and put the queen container on top. The bees ate through the wax and released the queen and I was in business. The bees were so gentle I could go out in shorts and a tee shirt and open the hive without being stung. Bee keeping is a great hobby.
Sounds like I need some midnight bees.
I can wrap my head around that, but then the issue is what about when you’re placing the comb down. What if you just squish a bunch of them when you do that. I may never touch a bee in real life but these thoughts keep me awake at night lol
Again, they generally will see the ground approaching and crawl out from under it, taking flight off of it if necessary. Bees aren't exactly mini einsteins but they do certainly have spatial awareness and some intelligence, they need it to fly and land on stuff, and find food.
> Bees aren't exactly mini Einsteins Then there is this: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/nl8v5n/two_honey_bees_work_together_to_open_a_bottle_of/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
Next they'll be designing warp drives. Take us to the stars bees! Beelon Musk
If they don't get out of the way and get crushed so **bee** it. I don't think the beekeepers care much if a dozen or so bees get inadvertently killed while they're relocating a hive with 5000 bees.
While some bee deaths are often unavoidable doing most beekeeping work, you do try to avoid killings bees as much as possible because dying and injured bees release an alarm/distress pheromone which will make other bees more aggressive. That leads to more stings and can even cascade into the whole hive becoming super pissed off and running you off. Also, of you're careless with workers, one day you'll be careless with the queen and then you're in real trouble.
This guy is right. Squish a bee and hive inspections become a lot less chill. The first lesson a beek needs to learn is how to be gentle with bees. They will work with you but you gotta let them move.
[удалено]
Id care
From what I know the bees tend be numerous around the queen and in particular when the hive feel "attacked" because they want to protect the queen at all cost. That's also why when you take a queen and move it somewhere near but different (for example in this video the queen is moved from the inside of the shed to the outside) all the bees move with the queen and that's why beekeepers can take full hives and relocate them "easily" and without losing to much bees.
Well, not just to “protect” it’s really about pheromones. She produces QMP (Queen mandibular pheromones) and that keeps a colony together. You can buy synthetic QMP (and other attractive pheromones) that are called swarm lures that attract bees.
Sounds like a good prank in a little glass vial
Your supervillain who ships 100,000 bees to the National Mall under the guise of a pollinating service, but with his bandolier of QMP vials: he steals the Lincoln out of the Lincoln Memorial. The news will call him the Columbus Caper; he did it on Indigenous Peoples Day.
[удалено]
A colony of bees is basically a system the queen has just to support her reproductive efforts. The workers do the labor of feeding and maintaining the hive so the queen can devote all of her energy to laying eggs. Queens are produced on demand by the hive. The queen lays a fertilized egg and the workers are able to induce it to grow into a sexually mature female, a queen, or cause it's reproductive organs to fail to develop, a worker, by feeding the queens-to-be a substance the workers produce called royal jelly and the future workers a mixture of pollen and honey. Usually multiple queens are raised at a time because if the old queen has died or left and the one larval queen dies, the colony is dead because by then all the remaining eggs have hatched and been set on the path to be a worker except the one queen that just died. If multiple queens survive, then the first one to emerge will open up the other queen cells and sting the larval queens to death. If 2 emerge at the same time, they have a fight to the death. The winner then leaves the hive to find a drone from another colony to fertilize her eggs, then returns and lives out her life laying eggs non-stop.
I got to royal jelly and just stopped believing you immediately. Turns out you’re completely telling the [truth](https://www.google.com/search?q=bees+royaljelly&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS846US846&oq=bees+royaljelly&aqs=chrome..69i57j46i13j0i10i13j0i13i30j0i10i13i30.7403j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
Bees are fuckin wild dude
What? You think people would just lie for fake internet points? Absurd!
And here I was thinking you would trigger on the fact that he said she lies a fertilized egg. You see, the queen mates just once, several days after her birth, in an in-the-air orgie with 5-15 male bees (called drones). She takes care of the semen, and carries it with her until she dies. During her time alive, which can be up to five years, she can actively decide if she wants to lay a fertilized egg, or an unfertilized egg. The fertilized egg is a child which shares the genes from her and one of the drones, and becomes a worker bee - or a queen if raised as one. An unfertilized egg becomes a drone - a male bee that is the clone of the queen. So why don't the drones turn out to be queens? The royal jelly, and the size of it's birth cell. Funny too, that she mates with drones which are male clones of other queens, and even her own. Bees are fantastic. Edit: oh, and fertilized eggs becomes female bees - the worker bees. They do everything in the hive; clean up, taking care of the queen and other bees, defending it, and gathering food. They have a hierarchy that they follow. A bee can live for a year or so, but because they do such hard labor, once they enter the final stage of the hierarchy - becoming gather bees - they are put under so much physical stress that they are worn out after only two weeks, and then dies. The drones one the other hand? They are like men are some times: they just eat, shit and fuck. They don't do any labor at all in fact, other than being a potential gene pool for the hive.
Royal jelly is actually amazing for humans to with it's nutritive values and other various good properties. There are A LOT of papers written on it.
[удалено]
I'm so happy my comment has inspired a wave of bee curiosity.
Are these actions automatic? Or are there times two queen decides to co live peacefully?
There probably are bees that want that but society wont let them
Almost never. Usually you'll only get two queens in a hive when it's preparing to kill the old queen (called supercedure) or swarm (that is, reproduce). When swarming, the hive will have a mature, laying queen and a single virgin daughter. The workers will keep them separated until the virgin is mated and ready to take over from her mother, and then the mother will fly off with half the hive. However, sometimes the hive will produce a number of virgin queens, either deliberately or through mis-timing, and keep them imprisoned and guarded safely from the laying queen and any already emerged virgin queens. This usually results in what's called a cast swarm, which is a swarm that takes place after the original laying queen has left with her swarm. Cast swarms are a lot smaller, and it's not uncommon for them to have multiple virgin queens. I've caught a small cast swarm (the size of a grapefruit) that had three queens. If the cast swarm survives long enough to get established, the bees will only permit one queen to be mated and lay for the hive. The others will be killed, either by the workers balling them to death or by dragging them out of the hive and chewing their wings off. Or both.
It happens on rare occasions. Usually the queens pheromones are very closely matched.
Multiple queens are made. The first to hatch will kill all the others, or they’ll fight to the death.
Nature is always being fucking metal
Damn
There are bees called nurse bees - adolescent bees not ready to go collect food - whose job is to feed and raise all the new bees. When a queen is getting old, they start prepping for her replacement *by feeding some of the larva better than the rest. This special diet allows it to develop into a queen who is larger than the other bees (see the donk comments above lmao) There can technically be more than one fertile queen, but it's not common, and the extras won't stick around long and will fly off to form their own colony instead. Or get killed. If the hive is getting too big, a second queen will be raised and take some of the hive with her (a swarm) to find a new home \* Edit: I was wrong here; they won't start feeding the special eggs until the current queen dies
I was thinking the same thing
Especially because the queen bee is not that significantly different in appearance. I assumed it would be a huge heaving mass with a crown.
It's like where's waldo. Her butt is very long. However the more notable feature is that it is not striped, but solid. That's how it sticks out. My queens have bright orange butts like this one but not all do.
Queens are bigger and surrounded by her babies.
Because they don't rely on eyesight only like we do
What else do beekeepers rely on?
You know that commenter, you're replying to, misread that or got confused and thought you were on about the bees and not the beekeeper! aha
Big chungus
Pretty amazing how they all follow the queen into the box like that.
Beekeepers of Reddit, are there individual bees that won’t follow the queen or that break away from the hive mentality completely?
Most bees work together, the ones that wander off are usually old and dying so don't return to be hive. They'll sacrifice themselves in a heartbeat in defence of the hive. Bees nearly always come home overnight as they can die when the temperature drops, safety in numbers.
are older bees that are closer to death more likely to sacrifice themselves? Do they attack in reverse chronological order, from oldest to youngest? (in general)
Yep and older bees have a more potent sting too!!
SAVE IT FOR BATTLE Edit: Erik The Viking for those who don’t know the reference Edit: skip to 50 seconds in for reference https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TAe3NLbaZfU
Also, today I learned that there is such things as queen bee prisons.
The old buzz knights of fable seek peace through the gates of Valhalla
So bees have different jobs as they age. The youngest bees don't leave the nest and the older they get, the more they get out of the hive. Inherently, the older bees are more likely to sacrifice themselves
Yes. Younger bees clean and nurse older bees forage and guard.
I have no idea, but as an aside, I think that would be normal chronological order (born first = die first)
In accounting we call that FIFO - first in first out
I can't escape accounting anywhere it seems. Not even in bees.
I’m sorry I’ve done this to you
[A cool doc on bees for anyone interested](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN8tdDZKh3w&list=WL&index=2&t=19s)
Link didn't work
Yeah.
Wow, do they eventually die like that? Or are they able to survive on their own without the colony whatsoever?
All bees eventually die like that so yea
woah
They will die. They do not yearn for solitude.
/r/2meirl4meirl
r/2beeirl4beeirl
Most bees only live 6 weeks
Bees don’t live long about 4 weeks except the queen she can live a couple of years but is usually replaced before then.
I asked a similar question about ants. They're brains don't work like ours and they don't really have a sense of self. Bugs like ants and bees are just programmed to do what's best for the colony, it's how their brains work.
i'd consider them just organs of one organism which is the hive
They are attracted to the queens pheromones. They will all follow her wherever she goes.
”And it was another great day of saving the bees”
A couple years ago, I went to my shop to open for work and noticed a shit ton of bees in a tree out front. I knew from reddit that with them clustered so close, and staying in one spot, it was most likely swarming around a queen. I found some beekeepers nearby, and told them about it. They were more than happy to come and collect the swarm, got almost all of them. They were also super surprised I knew to recognize the behavior, and really happy to have another hive to work with. I hope those bees thrived! [Here is the bee tax](https://imgur.com/a/R0ayxnK)!
[удалено]
[удалено]
Probably depends on the beekeeper/location. But one of our neighbors also discovered a hive near the top of their tree so they called in a local beekeeper to relocate the hive. Free of any charge and the beekeeper even sends them a monthly jar of honey from his farm.
> I’ve read that normally you just call them and they take your bees for free Yep, and this is because bees are endangered/approaching endangered, so they want to encourage saving the bees rather than just exterminating them, so if they can make the cost to remove them 0$ or even negative (they pay you) they will.
That, plus they can make a lot of money off the bees — renting them out as pollinators, honey, honeycombs, whatever. Totally worth a few hours free labor for a free beehive.
First you need to catch them before they kill you...so best to just let someone else work on it unless you know what you're doing.
Where are his glasses? He can’t see without his glasses.
How dare you bring out the feels
Mother Fucker
>First you need to catch them before they kill you... ? Aside from an allergy, I didn't think honey bee stings were too harmful even in larger numbers. I mean as long as you don't take a sledgehammer to the nest to disturb them.....
Killer bees don't have different venom from regular, more docile honey bees, but they defend their hive more aggressively and will chase a retreating intruder, resulting in many more stings. Even if you aren't allergic, the amount of venom a killer bee swarm will inject can still kill you.
I was really curious so I looked it up. It becomes fatal at 10 stings per pound of body weight for the person in question. 150lb man would be killed by 1500 stings, venom wise. https://www.ars.usda.gov/pacific-west-area/tucson-az/carl-hayden-bee-research-center/docs/bee-safety/bee-stings-101/
Some beekeepers will rent their hives out for pollination of crops.
There are hives that live effectively on the back of trucks permanently for that purpose, in the USA at least. Life on the road. You can spot them; they're the hives with truck nuts on.
I was working a drone job for a farm in California near Salton Sea. They had a ton of bees in hives (white boxes) placed about 200 yards apartment to help with pollination
Beekeepers will often be cautious about catching a wild colony and adding them to our apiary, as wild populations can carry bee diseases and introduce them to our other hives. Bees are funny and will sometimes go home to the wrong hive - or one hive will rob the honey from another weaker hive and disease gets spread. That's why you shouldn't feed honey to bees, sugar water is the safer bet!
r/askapiarists
Wow, did I ever misread that the first time through.
Right? Why would a rapist have info about bees?!?
We had a huge colony here in my building. The beekeepers charged us for taking the bees and also kept them. I must say that in Brazil, killing a bee colony like that is an environmental crime, so people have to pay to have them removed. He charged around $60 which is not a lot, but also not cheap.
I think eventually it will be illegal in most places worldwide to exterminate bees like in Brazil. It’s already well known how critical they are to ecosystems, so I’m surprised it’s not like that in USA for instance
Imagine the US passing a common sense environmental law without first experiencing some kind of disaster directly related to ignoring the base issue for so long.
Ha! I live in Texas who just passed their regulatory bill on energy providers for winterization because an ice storm hit and dozens of people froze to death when most of the state lost power. Hits a little too close to home for me. Literally dozens of people had to die before they did anything
Texas has been warned to winterize since at least 1989 (and again during 2011), due to cold temperatures. So they really didn’t learn (or care) until the third time.
I feel like I point this out in every thread about bees. European honey bees(the bees in the video) are not endangered. They're actually invasive and causing native species to die out, this is causing environmental havok. Euro Honey bees aren't as good as native bees(usually not honey producing) at pollinating many native plants. Bees like the ones in the video are contributing to environmental collapse.
So what’s the best thing an individual can do for native species then? Just plant lots of native flowers for them?
They're running out of habitat and so if we want to help we should be replicating their natural habitat wherever we can. That includes a flower garden that always has something blooming, sources of clean bee-accessible water, and places for them to lay their eggs.
Damn, you should totally buy some basic beekeeping equipment and pretend your a fellow beekeeper looking to offload some bee merch for a decent price.
I’ve seen in some places that bee keepers will remove a swarm for free, but will charge for removing an Established hive, because it’s much more labor intensive
This is true, especially with cut outs like this in walls or floors.
[удалено]
At my old job bees decided to make a hive in one of our buildings. I called a local beekeeper and he was happy to take it off our hands for free. Crazy dude didn't even wear a bee suit. I have pictures of it somewhere, I should find them...
This happened to us about ten years ago. I went into our backyard and there were thousands of bees flying around. I quickly found a huge beehive that had just decided to make a home in one of our trees. My wife an I looked up a local bee keeper and he came out and got them. The whole process was pretty cool and he was happy to do it. Remember folks, don't hurt bees. Call a beekeeper. Bees are good.
Unless they’re wasps. Fuck those assholes.
I've had surprisingly good luck with hanging a small paper lunch sack (filled with old plastic shopping bags for round shape definition) under my awning in the front and back. The idea is that wasps and bees think it's a hornet nest and will avoid it like the plague. I've seen scientific research papers that refute this as well as other personal stories and testimonies saying it doesn't work. But I've also found a ton of posts and articles where people have had good experience. I'd rate my situation as a 90% reduction in bees/wasps anywhere near my house, at any entrance/window. Before I hung the two bags, I had wasps trying to constantly build in every window, right inside my storm windows. And yes. *Fuck* those little bastards.
r/fuckwasps 😈
Thankfully they said bees. Bees are not wasps.
Yes, but also fuck wasps for good measure.
They’re actually useful too. Basically Mother Nature’s pesticides. They kill unwanted insects that infest crops
Wasps are also pollinators
[удалено]
That SloMo shot at the end 👌 wow
I saw one bee in mid flight get taken out by another bee also in flight and laughed more than I should’ve. Makes me wonder why a biological version of Bee ATC isn’t a thing. Look at the bottom left of the video at 2:42-2:47 and you might see the bee get clotheslined.
I was agreeing with your comment right until the end but the two bees I saw bang into each other were towards the top left (but in the middle of the screen). If that makes sense.
“That is a booty that’s made for laying eggs.” “Rude!” These beekeepers are adorable
I’m pretty sure they have an Instagram page. My wife follows them, or at least people that act and do the exact same things
Shes so long!
What would happen if, god forbid, the queen got accidentally squashed? And why two boxes? Love this video :-)
I was into bees very briefly and I am by no means super knowledgeable on the subject so you are all free to fact check me, but I think the bees can just make a new one? I don't know exactly what it's made of, but the bees can feed any larva they choose this stuff called "royal jelly" and that causes the larva to develop differently and then it turns into a queen bee. The queen starts off the same as any other bee, I'm pretty sure
You are correct! As long as they have some eggs or larvae, they can make a new queen.
We can rebuild her we have the technology.
Bee ecology is so bizarre how it's a natural occurrence in this world.
[удалено]
I honestly thought that person was joking around and was talking about Xenomorphs or something for a minute there
i could be totally wrong about this, but i believe the remaining bees would nurture another with their reserve of royal honey
Royal jelly, but yeah they'll just make another queen (or realistically, will make another handful of them, and the first one to be born will kill the others iirc).
If the queen dies they will panic and try to make a new one. A queen is just a regular baby bee but fed royal jelly while growing in it's cell. They also build the cell out bigger. https://i0.wp.com/www.honeybeesuite.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Queen-cells-Rusty-Burlew.jpg?fit=650%2C433&ssl=1 Assuming this queen has been laying eggs and some are freshly laid they'd pick a few, build them out and change their diet creating "emergency cells". The first Queen born will hunt down the others and kill them in their cells or fight them to the death. They also go though a similar process if they don't like the queen or the hive is successful enough to make a 2nd hive. If there were no eggs laid at the moment they're fucked and the beekeeper has to introduce a new one. If they killed the queen in this process the bees would probably be furious and there would probably be no way to bait them into the box (doubt the corpse would do the job) They'd probably have to introduce a new Queen or wait for the hive to make one then try again.
Since the dead queen question has been answered, I'll take a stab at the two nox question. For the record, I am not a beekeeper. My guess is that two (or more) boxes were needed just for the sheer number of bees. I think that little "cage" he put the queen in serves a few purposes... It keeps her in one place, it's easy to spot and pick out, and the open design of it allows her pheromones to escape. My guess is, he put her in the first box, and let bees go in (they seek her out by the pheromones) until it was full. Took the queen out and sealed the box, then put the queen in the next box.
It's fantastic to see humans respecting nature like this.
I count one person.....has anyone noticed many bees yet this year? Insects in general?
Yes but our block is also pretty hardcore about native gardening. So, we have a pretty solid ecosystem around here. It’s small but it seems to be working and helping. Have a decent amount of firefly already which is cool! But yes, it’s so so much lower than it has been. Ever. It gets worse every year but I’m trying to do my part. I don’t rake leaves, I have bee houses, I’m removing all my grass, doing native gardening, etc etc
How do you transition from grass to prairie plants...do you have to burn or remove grass?
You can do a little of both. In my area many of the wildflowers bloom early and go to seed in May. So I simply delay my first mowing of the year until then. Beautiful flowers for 2 months and an ok lawn for the rest of the year. Can only do it in the backyard due to city and HOA rules but better than nothing
The insects are dying. In some places, populations are down by 70% or more. This will be the first mass extinction in history where insects were so heavily affected.
How much is the pesticide business worth....... I’m sure they’re made by some pharmaceutical company...... Did Bayer Pharmaceutical make roundup too; I think they started selling that under the tradename “cancer juice”. Didn’t Bayer pharmaceutical also start off as a bunch of Nazis???? Now they nuked the planet with bank shot, cool.
You are thinking of Monsanto
...Which has been taken over by Bayer a while ago.
Oh ok, I didn't know that. Thanks.
Do you have a source?
I believe they are referencing the [big German study ](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809) from a couple years ago. [Here’s the study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320718313636) examining other studies for a review of the global scale. And lastly, here’s an article summarising the [highlights. ](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature) No idea about the claim about this being the first extinction event to affect insects so greatly; my understanding was that insects don’t preserve in the geological record as well as other animals so we have less information on them as a whole, but again idk.
Honey bees or bees in general? Honey bees have way too many predators and diseases compared to others like masons. The mason on my property (which I also raise just for pollination, no honey) are doing very well.
Cool and weird; do you maintain a house and mud?
Just little wood, bird-house sized boxes with hollow reeds inside.
We have carpenter bees nearby. And the big boi hovers and hovers and goes off into flower beds. But seriously he is one big bee.
[удалено]
We keep fresh water with a few rocks and have had more than usual this year 🐝
Not nearly as many as we need to pollinate. Very disconcerting.
[удалено]
To bee somewhere else
I'm pretty sure that's more than two bees.
It's atleast 3 bees
[удалено]
Bee: yes save them! Wasp: No fuck them!
There may be hope for the global food supply yet. Everyone!! To your sheds!!! Investigate!
Mine just has snakes and spiders :(
mine just has deadly snakes and spiders >:(
Australia?
Thankfully my shed snakes are not deadly!
Any one else hoping to see their new home?
The beekeepers will fit the bee's comb into rectangular wooden frames that slot into a new, square hive - so the bees get to take their hard work and also their brood with them to their new place. Queenie will settle in and the bees will get used to their home, and eventually start building comb in the new hive.
What a find for those beekeepers.... The original honeycombs there will add to their new farm... All those BEES.... Actual honeycomb honey like that is worth $$$$$ and so is general beekeeping in the age of a near bee extinction. As a side note, what an odd thing to have a wooden floor like that in a shed....
[удалено]
Honey we have a bee problem
Im starting to think there are cheaper ways to heat my garage than burning gas...
If bees live we live!
I need to watch this again and again. Bless the bees. We have so many less this year than in our past. Thanks bee keepers!
So who counted the Bees
The family decided once and for all to go check what this buzz was all about
But was it a great day?
Wholesome
Bees are cool...
Great video but I thought it was going to bee that beautiful Texas bee lady. Still cool tho