Hi All

I think there is a combination of reasons that limit the flying life of the
worker bee.

Tatty, un-aerodynamic wings is one of them.

Failure to pick up enough fuel at the limit of outbound flight is another.

>   "...workers seem to die after flying a total of about 800 km, whether
that
>   distance was flown in 5 days or 30.

The 800 km mentioned may well be important and is also likely to vary from
strain to strain. Perhaps this should be researched and added to the
morphormetric and other data that we use to distinguish such strains.

However in all these cases the "cause of death" is starvation on failure to
return "on the last mission".

Only very small numbers die within a hive. (hopefully Allen will be able to
put some numbers on this later)


Regards From:- Dave Cushman, G8MZY
Beekeeping and Bee Breeding, http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman
IBList Archives, http://website.lineone.net/~d.cushman