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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Peter Smith <psmith AT leaptec.com>
  • To: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>, John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>, Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Happy Thanksgiving!
  • Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2016 16:31:56 +0000

As a mountain beekeeper with a bear fence, I do not observe this behavior. However, the bear fence is very much simpler than a deer fence – single strands of electrified wire about 8 inches apart, so I would not expect it to provide any significant barrier to their flight path

 

Peter

 

Peter Smith

P No trees or bees were killed in the distribution of this message, but countless electrons were seriously inconvenienced.

 

 

From: ocba [mailto:ocba-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Randall Austin
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2016 1:19 PM
To: John Rintoul <beecd AT icloud.com>; Orange County Beekeepers Association <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [ocba] Happy Thanksgiving!

 

John,

I think your conclusion makes a lot of sense. This may or may not be relevant but the mechanism for how this works may have to do with flight speed (rapidly accelerating on exit, rapidly decelerating on return) and how that relates to bee vision, as discussed in the JEB article here. An interesting experiment would be to incrementally move the hive closer and farther from the fence to see at what point the behavior changes.

I recently read somewhere, I forget where, about somebody that was doing the same thing to create a bee-safe zone in front of their hives so the flight path wouldn't be at the same level as the people-walking path. If I remember correctly, they used a regular ol' chain link fence as a screen, and it worked perfectly to deflect the exiting bees in exactly the way you've described. They didn't mention the behavior of returning bees, making me wonder if the distance from the fence (and its affect on speed/vision) is the critical factor there. If I recall, their fence was about 10 feet from the hive entrance.

I wonder if folks who keep bees in the mountains using bear fences have any observations on this topic.

Randall

On 11/24/2016 12:15 PM, John Rintoul wrote:

For beeks who like to think about weird stuff while digesting turkey.

 

About 3 weeks ago I moved one my hives to a new location. In its new location the entrance to the hive faces a mesh deer fence. The fence is about 5 feet from the entrance of the hive. Since the fence mesh has 2" x 2" openings (see pic below) I assumed that it wouldn't present an obstacle to the flight path of the bees. The bees spent a couple of days reorienting to the hive it its new location - first from within the fence and then gradually moving back to orient from the outside of the fence.

 

Yesterday when it was sunny and warm I watched the bees. Bees exiting the hive flew straight toward the fence. But they stopped about 8 inches short of the fence. They then maneuvered up and over the fence rather than flying through the fence. Apparently the mesh, even with its 2"x 2" holes, is seen by the exiting bees an impediment.

 

The returning bees are a different story. They fly straight toward the hive. They also stop a few inches from the fence. But rather than maneuver up and over the fence, they pause, find an opening in the mesh and fly through the chosen opening directly into the hive.

 

So why do the returning bees fly through the fence while the exiting bees fly over? Only the bees know, but thinking about it from a bee's perspective I came up with a theory.

 

The exiting bees see the mesh. Rather than wasting precious foraging time finding a hole in it they simply climb up and over. The returning bees have oriented to the hive in a specific location. They need to see the hive in that orientation to find their way home. When they encounter the fence they are following a site line to the hive. If they fly up to go over the fence they lose their 'orientation' view of the hive. So instead they take a moment to find a hole in the fence and fly through all the while maintaining their learned orientation to the hive.

 

Other theories - thoughts?

image1.JPG

 

John Rintoul

 

No trees or bees were killed in the distribution of this message, but countless electrons were seriously inconvenienced.




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