> Subject: Re: Was there a Bee Battle? > Hello Richard !! > > Check if the killed bees are male bees. If thats the fact, everything is > ok. Every autumn the male bees are killed by the female bees because > they have done their job for this year. During winter the male bees > are just eating the honey saved from the girls. The girls don't like > this and for that reason the poor male bees are killed. > > Harald Bodenhofer Hei! Harald is pointing here at what we in Norway refer to as "Drone Slaughter" which as he rightly says occurs every autumn, often unoticed by the beekeeper either because the drone numbers are already low or because the hives have been moved, as mine usually are, to a remote site to take advantage of a late flow (heather in my case). The same "slaughter" can take place earlier in the year if there is a dramatic chnage in flow/weather conditions whilst the queen is in full swing and there is a lot of brood to feed -- the bees then eject all adult drones and empty the brood chamber of all drone brood so that worker brood has the best survival chance in the changed conditions (although I've never seen it, it is said that they will continue the process in extreme cases and begin to throw out worker brood as well) Drone sluaghter can be VERY dramatic as it can all be accomplished in the course of a few hours and the beekeeper can come home from work, give his hives the normal quick once over and find that one or more has heaps of dead and dying bees mixed with brood on the ground below the flight board front edge! The first time I saw this it was a shock! One's immediate thoughts are poisoning with insecticide or an attack of some virulent disease -- after the initial panic is over the fact that they are all drones finally sinks in and one breaths a sigh of relief! I was able to watch some of the process this year and was somewhat puzzled. Every few minutes 2/3 three workers hustled a drone out of the hive entrance and then one of these chivvied the drone to the edge of the flight board where it fell off and feebly crawled around in the grass for a few minutes before apparently expiring. The worker seemed to grapple with the drone and appeared to be trying to "bite" it on the thorax, meanwhile the drone was acting drunk/drugged/half dead and offered little or no resistance. There was no sign incidentally of dismembering or pulling apart of any of the ejected drones. How is it done... How can a worker force a much bigger drone to move in this way? Why were the drones acting as if they were already half dead? The bee race here is Apis Mellifera Carnica if that has a bearing on the details of the behaviour pattern. Answers and opinions would be welcome. Cheers Tony. --------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony N. Morgan (Tony) Fax: +47 73 89 62 86 "Stavshagen" E-mail: [log in to unmask] Midtsandan Sor-Trondelag College 7563 MALVIK Elec. Eng. Department Norway 7005 TRONDHEIM, Norway ----------------------------------------------------------------