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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: What did you do in your Apiary/Bee yard today?
« Last post by The15thMember on July 18, 2024, 11:29:47 am »Just cups, a little bigger than a pea.Okay, thanks.
Does what they're bringing in say anything about what's going on inside the hive? i e, does heavy pollen traffic indicate food stores for one particular stage in their lives?Eh, kind of yes and no. So pollen is predominantly used to feed brood, both directly and by nurse bees eating it to stimulate their hypopharyngeal glands to produce royal jelly. A colony harvesting a lot of pollen, therefore, would logically be intent on rearing brood. But bees will also store excess pollen so they will have some accessible to begin brood rearing in early spring before the first pollen flow. So are they gathering pollen because they want to rear brood now? Or because they want to have some for over the winter? Or just because they are bees, and gathering whatever is available while it's available? Probably all of the above. The other factor here is that the amount of pollen and other stores coming in will basically tell the bees if they can afford to rear brood now. That's why your girls aren't rearing brood during the dearth. So the amount of stores coming in from the foragers determines whether brood rearing is feasible, but brood rearing also increases the demand for stores and therefore foraging activity. Does that makes sense?
And is there any way to tell if they're toting water or nectar?
Bees with very heavy crops will sometimes land heavily or even crash land under the extra weight. But there is really no way to tell if that weight is honey or water on a bee by bee basis. If your bees happen to drink at a watering hole on your property, that can be a good indicator of how much water they are bringing in. And of course if the bees are filling honeycombs and especially if they are drawing wax, then you can be sure there is nectar coming in.
SNL is missing out on a great opportunity to be funny again. I know that they think this DEI garbage is all fine and dandy but sooner or later, the facts had to smack them in the face. Pieces of corporate America are starting to see the errors of that ideology but let's hope that our military sees it before one of our enemies shows it to them/us. The fact that those who fumbled that ball that badly are still in their positions is a bit concerning for me and this is a case of them being too stupid to see that they're stupid.