Allen Dick asked:

> Does anyone know if producing wax
>
>  1. ages bees or if it
>  2. extends their life, or if
>  3. it has no effect on lifespan?

That's an interesting question.
The bees are taking in lots of sugars, and
doing some fairly fancy chemistry, but is
this "work"?  How much "work" is it?

If you have one of cheap non-contact "point in the ear"
thermometers, I'd suspect that you can measure thorax
temperatures of bees that are hanging around making wax.
I can't imagine that making wax would generate anywhere
near the thorax temperatures (and thereby indicate that
"heavy work" was being done) that flight, fanning, or
thermoregulation would.

Yes, I am using a very simplistic model of a bee, and a bee
is clearly not a classic "black body" or a "heat engine",
but there should be a direct connection between "heat
dissipation" and "wear and tear" on the bee.

My view of bee lifespans (to date) has been to compare them to airframes.
Bees only have so many "miles of flight" or "flight hours" in them.
Bees that do not fly much (winter clustering bees) clearly live
longer than foraging bees, but it is ALSO strictly true that bees
hatched in fall do not draw much comb, if any.

So, how to measure and compare making wax to not making wax?

We could set up a test in an observation hive next spring.
Too late now - everyone is snug in wooden hives for the winter,
and the empty observation hive in my office has a tiny sign saying:

      For Rent
  30,000 Bedrooms
      0 Baths
 Lots of Closet Space!

...placed there by someone who clearly needs me to
assign them a heavier workload.


So, let's assume we tag emerging bees to test this:

1) How might I prevent a group of bees from making wax?
   I have no idea, but I need a "control group".

2) How do I ensure that everyone in the "wax makers" group
   makes a similar amount of wax?  I am clueless.

3) How do I know if I am measuring "natural lifespans" or
   doing nothing but counting the number of hostile territory
   mission casualties of the 159th Aerial Reconnaissance Squadron?

Regardless, I don't see how "natural lifespan" is a relevant
issue for more than a small percentage of bees.  It seems
very clear to me that very few bees survive all their foraging
sorties and are able to live long enough to die of "natural causes"
where we might see them and count them:

a) Pick a minimal "number of eggs laid per day".  Let's say 1,500

b) Assume that we have no mission casualties.  Every bee returns
   from every sortie.

c) This would mean that about 1,500 bees a day would die in the hive.
   Assuming 12 hours of daylight, this means that the "undertakers"
   would have to remove 2 dead bees every minute to keep up with the
   average rate of 1,500 deaths per day and keep the bottom board
   from becoming buried in dead bees.  Even 720 deaths per day would
   imply one dead bee carried out per minute.

I have never seen anything close to this many dead bees being carried
out in an hour, and I have spent many an hour idly wandering among
hives watching flight operations while pretending to pay attention to
yet another boring conference call on a cordless phone.

A small number of bees do die of "old age" in the hive, and can see
them being carried out, even on fine flying days.  So not all bees
will attempt a "final mission" from which they will never return.
Perhaps they are too "worn out" to take off one more time.

Therefore, I'd guess that very few bees live a "full natural lifespan",
and most die senseless premature deaths while foraging.  I guess the
"proof" one way or the other would be tracking marked forager take-offs,
to see if most foragers fail to return after roughly the same number of
flights, flight hours, or days of life.

But most old bees clearly don't die at home.  Most appear to end up
"missing in action, presumed dead".

        jim