""bees will  coat rough wood, but not necessarily smooth wood, with propolis.  Mann  Lake, Dadant should take note...."



I liken the bee's use of propolis to  the  process of inflammation and repair in a body - an adaptive response. It has a huge energy cost, and so assuming it is an appropriate response,  an organism ( or super-organism) wont do it unless the cost is less than not doing it. Nature is inherently lazy. The forgoing is almost a maxim in interpreting why a body does what it does. So using that base in this question, maybe the bees are 1) trying to fill in the imperfections to give the rough wood the same qualities as smooth wood- reduce the places for microbes grow - like an aseptic inflammatory response, and/or 2) the rough wood hosts a pile of microbes and the bees are responding to this source of infection - like a septic inflammatory response. A similar scenario is in our bodies response to a surgical implant vs a foreign body, such as a thorn.  Could be in planing the interior surface that for once our sense of aesthetics worked in the bees favour - we cleaned out the dust, molds and crud and left a clean, smooth  surface less likely to harbour microbes or support their growth!! The bees energy can be put towards other things more economically interesting to us



Greg Hawkins

Everton, ON

Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry



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