Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [nafex] Bee Habits

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Tom Olenio <tolenio@sentex.net>
  • To: nafex@yahoogroups.com
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] Bee Habits
  • Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 15:01:32 -0400

Hi,

Dumb question...

How do bees navigate away from the hive, and then return to it?

I know that they do a dance in the hive which tells other bees where nectar can be found, which I believe has to do with the position of the sun in the sky.

But would the bees you hand carried to the plants be "lost" and not know the way back to the hive?

Since hives are moved around to pollinate crops, the bees must have some means of remembering where the hive is on a daily basis.

Hopefully, a bee expert will be able to reveal how dumb this question is.

Regards,
Tom

"Raby, Brian {20-4~Indianapolis}" wrote:

 Don,We keep about 5 hives ourselves (my wife being the bee keeper), and she suggested that she collect some bees from the hive and place them on the strawberry plants to sort of wake them up to the fact that there is a nectar source nearby.  Did you ever try to do that with your bees,  kind of hand hold them over to a food source?  Anyway, either the strawberries are self-fertile or other flying objects are doing the pollinating, but I'm going to have a full crop this year.Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: Don Yellman [mailto:dyellman@earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 12:58 PM
To: nafex@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [nafex] Bee Habits
 
Brian:
     I have kept bees for over 20 years, and have learned this about
them: each bee only works one type of flower at a time.  Your bee kept
returning to the dandelion because she had been assigned to dandelions.
    That said, my bees have never been too gung-ho for strawberries.
What pollination takes place on strawberries seems to be done by
smaller, feral insects.  They must not have much nectar or other
attraction for classic bees.  Even so, I have never noticed that
strawberries fail to set due to lack of pollination, so they may be, to
some extent, self-fertile, or they benefit from some air pollination.

Rgds, Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA
 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

--
Thomas Olenio
Ontario, Canada
Hardiness Zone 6a
 

GIF image

GIF image




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page