> all social insects spend a great deal of time inactive, often 50% of their day (Höldobler and Wilson 1990; Johnson 2002, 2003; Evans 2006). There is even data strongly suggesting that many inactive workers are asleep (Kaiser and Steinerkaiser 1983; Klein et al. 2008).

> Inactive bees, for which it was impossible to reconstruct the trajectory accurately, were filtered out. During our analysis, we focused on the solar days when bees were sealed inside the hive, assuming that such a condition is similar to the resting state of the brain.

In the first citation, it is pointed out that a large percentage of hive bees may be inactive. The second cite suggests that the number of them is not quantifiable. I would guess no two hives would have the same demographic profile, ever. They aren't machines.

Camazine et al showed years ago that manipulating hives causes pathogen transmission. But the opposite—not opening hives—is not beekeeping.  Some people may imagine hives with sensors and expert systems that make all the judgement calls. 

To me, the whole point of having bees is to go inside them often enough to have first hand knowledge of what they are up to. Otherwise, it would be like owning a car and sitting in the back while it drives me around. Oh yeah, some people want that too.

PLB

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