Dying bees in HPP

[Peter Easterling]

A couple of days ago we began finding dead or dying bees around our back door. No swarm, maybe a dozen. We've not seen bee behavior like this before. Anyone experiencing this disturbing bee behavior or know why it is happening? We don't spray anything and often have bees doing their thing in our flowering trees.

[terracore]

We have seen this before however not necessarily in those numbers. It may sound silly but when we find the "dying" ones we feed them a little bit of honey at the end of a chopstick and they regain their strength and fly away.

I don't know what your weather has been like but we haven't had any rain here for some time. They might be getting exhausted looking for moist nectar.

[MarkP]

It is the fate of worker bees to work until they wear out. Under normal circumstances they are always dying. Unusual to see them all in one place though.

[Seeb]

Do you have dust clouds from a nearby road?

[macuu222]

I hope it's not serious. Our mango tree in lower hpp is loaded with buds and without the help of bees.....it will be a low yield harvest!

[Obie]

Honeybees don't pollinate mangoes.

"the common bee is not a main mango tree helper. In fact, flies, wasps, moths and even ants help pollinate mango flowers."

[kalakoa]

Worker bees live 60-70 days and their stripes darken/fade as they age.

[Iju]

The bees have been busy around my blackberry plants daily. Thanks to them, lots of big berries now.

[randomq]

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkP

It is the fate of worker bees to work until they wear out.

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I heard Harry Kim say that just the other day, before property valuations went up...

Neat trick with the honey, terracore. I'd like to think you're helping them build a resistance to whatever ailed them, and making them stronger!

[My 2 cents]

Wild hives are pretty much a thing of the past due to the Verroa Mite and the bore bug, so it's a very good thing that people are helping the bees by maintaining hives. As part of that process some beekeepers clip the wings of the queens so that they won't relocate. The workers will still look for a place to relocate, but the queens can't follow so there won't be a swarm. Generally the workers will just go back to the hive, but I'm wondering if the dead ones have something to do with this process. We found some dead ones here too, and I know that there are some hives with clipped wing queens nearby. Now is the time of year when they want to swarm.