Bernd Heinrich a very observent fellow watched his bees fly out into a sunny
10 F
degree day, crash into the snow and die. He curiously collected a hundred
an some bees and found they where all full of feces. His questions to me
where;
if he went into his hive and took bees out of the center of the cluster
would those bees also be full, do the bees come out only to rid
themselves of wastes or do they think its warm enough to fly and collect
something, do bees relieve themselves next to and on the hive or do they try
to fly out and away? He did check abdomen temp., I cant remember what it was
but he
did say it was too cold to sting and probably too cold to rid themselves of
any wastes. He also checked honey stomachs and found them to be empty. Waste
management is an interesting subject I wonder how much we know about it?