Dear all,

 

The last 2 months I have been seeing worker bees in my colonies that are say 20% smaller than "normal" worker bees. They really catch the eye. Some colonies have more of these bees than others, some have none. It reminds of the polymorfism you see in some ants. The smaller bees are able to fly and to collect pollen and the colonies appear healthy and normal apart from the presence of smaller bees. I don't recall seeing before and in the last 12 years I saw a lot of bees.

 

I have been looking for a connection between a pathogen and bee size but I did not find any literature info on it. I have a couple of thoughts on the cause of small bees and I really appreciate an opinion on them who knows anything about it.

 

1) Lack of nutrients does not seem the case as there are colonies with and without small bees in the same habitat.

2) A pathogen...which one? 

3) Foundationless combs. I have switched to natural combs (no use of foundation) completely over the last 2 years. But if this would be a cause, why don't all colonies have small ones in them?

4) Someone is breeding small bees close to me. A buckfast cowboy could be filling the air with drones from smaller bee-races. A lot of small bees have some orange/yellow bands. But I have also seen small bees in colonies in our black bee (mellifera mellifera) reserve and that is supposed to be free of other bee races. 

 

Anyone?

 

atb

Lennard
 		 	   		  
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