Thursday 4 April 2013

Mortuary Bees

'Bring out your dead' - It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it!

Usually bees leave the hive to die, but every now and then they pop their clogs on the inside, especially during the winter months. As the days go by dead bees accumulate on the hive floor and over time these would block the hive entrance.

Fortunately, some workers are tasked with being mortuary bees. These bees collect the dead and drag them out of the hive. During the summer months it's not unusual to see mortuary bees flying like mini Chinook helicopters with their cargo slung beneath them, before unceremoniously dropping the corpses several metres away from the hive.

For winter bees the mortuary task is much harder. To start with winter bees are heavier (see Fat Girls) making airlifting impossible, but the real issue is that by now the bees are old and tired.

So they struggle to drag the dead from the hive, and onto the ground, and through the grass for a few feet before returning exhausted to collect the next casualty.

It's been unseasonable cold for well over a month, and on those rare occasions the bees have been able to fly, the mortuary bees have been busy - as I look around the hives I can see hundreds of dead bees.

It's a worry; the bees have plenty of sugar syrup so they won't starve, but they desperately need the protein in fresh pollen to raise brood.

For without new bees who will dispose of the dead?

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