Arron Morris said:

> A piece of info I have in my head which I cannot give a source and frankly
> am not sure if it is true or not, but I'll spill it anyway, is, "the most common
> cause of death in honeybees is starvation, due to the fact that they literally
> fly their little wings off until they're (the wings) are worn and tattered to
> the point that they will not support flight.  Unable to fly anymore, the bees
> fall to the ground and subsequently starve."

I agree that tattered wings are a good way to identify experienced foragers
with many sorties to their credit, but I have read that "wear and tear" on wings
was not thought to be the critical factor in the lifespan of a bee.

A. Neukirch is cited by Mark Winston in his book "The Biology of the Honeybee"
as having written a paper entitled "Dependence of the life span of the honeybee
upon flight performance and energy consumption" (1982).  Mr. Winston summarizes
Neukirch as follows:

  "...workers seem to die after flying a total of about 800 km, whether that
  distance was flown in 5 days or 30.  This appears to be caused by the
  breakdown in the enzymatic mechanism which metabolize carbohydrates
  into glycogen.  When the glycogen reserves which accumulate in the
  flight muscles of young workers are exhausted, the older foragers are unable
  to synthesize additional glycogen, and they die."

So, it appears that, regardless of the amount of food available, bees reach
a point where their muscles simply "wear out".  The good news is that they
do not starve to death.  The bad news is that they die just the same.

It seems reasonable to infer that tattered wings would force the bee to work
its muscles harder to fly, but the point seems to be that a bee dies
"a natural death" when it runs out of glycogen, even if it somehow avoids
tattered wings.

I slept through most of my organic chemistry (it was an 8am class,
and I was working nights at the time to pay for tuition), but I wonder if
there might be a dietary supplement that might help bees with this
problem, and extend their "mileage", and hence, lifespan.

If anyone could work out the chemistry, I've got a product name for
the dietary supplement:

        "Vitamin Bee"



             jim
       farmageddon (where the bees are on the clovers and vetch this week)