On Mon, 30 Aug 1993, Rick Hough wrote:
 
> Date    8/30/93
> Subject RE>flight chambers
> >From    Rick Hough
> To      Jerry Bromenshenk, Discussion of Bee Biology
>
>         Reply to:   RE>flight chambers
> Jerry Bromenshenk writes (regarding flight chambers):
>
> >So far, we have come up with the following:
> >
> >1.  Eliminate corners
> >2.  Use diffuse, non-directional light
> >3.  Pick up the mini-nucs during the day to get rid of old foragers
> >4.  May be able to train bees to fly to feeding station
>
> Sorry Jerry, I don't have any details on chamber design - but I do have
> a few comments (keep in mind I am not an academic, but a beekeeper
> w/only a couple years of experience):
>
> 1) Eliminating corners seems like an easy way out - does anyone know
> why the bees get "stuck" in the corners??   Are they simply trying to
> fly "home" to the nuc location they originally oriented to??
 
Bees in greenhouses and cages go to the light and get stuck on the barrier
(i.e., the corners)
 
>
> 2) Using diffuse lighting - it seems to me that this would confuse the
> bees - I was under the impression that the bees use the sun as a
> navigational aid (primarily the UV components, I think).  Without a
> substitute sun, I think it would be *very* difficult for the bees to
> communicate the location of a feeding station.
>
Yes, but at short distances they home on the landmarks.  Again, the
problem is bees trying to get to the light.
 
> 3) Pick up the nucs during the day to get rid of old foragers - this works,
> but at the penalty of losing all those hard-working foragers.  If you
> move the nuc more than 3 miles (in a single direction - not 1.5 miles out,
> and then 1.5 miles back to the same location!) the bees will "reorient" to
> the new location.  This way, you can move the hive at night (with nearly
> all the bees), and the old foragers can still be a useful.
>
  A beekeeper who pollinates strawberries in greenhouses does this.  The
intent is loss of the field force.  They learned to fly in a world with no
boundaries.  They don't re-learn very easily.
Naive bees may not have the same problem.
 
 
> 4) Training bees to fly to a feeding station - good luck - I'm not sure this
> is training in the traditional sense, but if the bees can navigate, and they
> find the feeding station and are able to return home to tell the rest of
> the colony where the feeding station is, you can rest assured that the
> other bees will come visit the feeding station, especially if that is the
> only sustinance available!!!
>
 
In this case the rest of the world are the bees in the mini-nuc.  We want
to encourage their flight in the chambers.
 
 
> Again, please take my comments in the light intended - I'm just someone
> who has been keeping bees a couple of years, and has listen to the
> traffic on BEE-L for a while - I am not by any stretch of the imagination
> a scholar or researcher.
>
> Good luck with your research - I would be interested to hear about your
> findings - maybe you could post a summary to BEE-L sometime??
>
> Rick Hough
> [log in to unmask], a hobby beekeeper from Hamilton, MA (NE of Boston).
 
Beekeepers often are my best source of information - e.g., the suggestion
of moving bees in the day.
 
Thanks for the prompt response.
 
Jerry