Friday, October 23, 2009

Beehive activity

I saw an interesting thing today whilst observing the entrance to a beehive. One of the bees was dragging another bee out of the hive. The bee was struggling against the other one and trying to get back in but for some reason neither of the bees were using their stings against the other. After several minutes the bee succeeded in pushing the other one off the bottom board and onto the ground where I lost sight of it. I wonder whether this bee was from a different hive and was being expelled or it was sick/old and was being disposed of.

2 comments:

  1. Could this have been the worker bees beginning to eject the drones for the winter? They push them out so the queen stops laying eggs over the winter months. ?

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  2. Hi Michelle, no if I recall correctly they were both workers bees and it was the middle of summer here in Australia. I have seen a bee on the ground outside the hive with a withered wing, so maybe it had a deformity and was rejected or something.

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