OK. I want to see if someone here know about bees.. but the thread is open to any discussion about your summer time beasties and creatures.

My Bees...

About a week ago we had a temporate day and as I was looking out of my kitchen window I noticed a bee on the rocks and stones in my yard. It kept walking around in a circle.

(I first noticed it at noon and the hero was still going at it a 8pm!?)

I thought Ok - It's dying and can't fly so is following around and around it's own pheremones.

Shortly afterward I noticed another bee on the shale walking in a 8-10 inch circle.

After that another bee came to my eye on a mound of soil doing exactly the same.

After than another bee appeared on the shale repeating the same motion in the same direction..

I suspect these bees were on their way home. One other thought is that they all collected pollen from the same area that might have been treated with insectocide?

I have a bee's nest in the roof overhang of my home.

Origionally back in March I thought they might be wasps because they were really skinny. They have fattened up since then so I get fat bumble bees and some less bumblish \ slim brown bees coming in and out of the overhang next to my back door.

The guys (or gals) rotating on the ground were the slimmer type.

The thing I am interested in is the behaiviour or reason as to their circle dance.. (I doubt my bees are old enough to remember new romantic music..)

Anyone know things about bees?

The circle dance is how bees communicate with each other to show the direction were to find more pollen.
Usually they do that in a bee hive.

Sounds like those were not the ordinary honeybee.
https://entomology.cals.cornell.edu/extension/wild-pollinators/native-bees-your-backyard
But I don't know what you have in your area.

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I've read some things about the bee situation. It's a puzzle.

Here are are some links to articles I've read:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/08/06/stung

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-armys-honeybee-theory

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/silent-hives

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I LOVE BEES!! :) but they're not doing too well almost everywhere you can point to :(

They definitely communicate with a circling dance, but either you're one of the first people to spot them doing so outside of a hive, cRunchy, or there was something wrong. I'll cheer myself up with the thought - for a moment - that it could have been an impromptu information kiosk for lost orienteers discussing which way to go next, but it could just as easily be that they weren't well :(

I know it takes a good while for pesticides to kill and that it's far from trauma free for the little creature so targeted :( and I do have experience of what happens to snails if they happen to have munched on a discarded cigarette butt for example. Their world wanderings shrink to going round and round in circles :/ I don't know if that's permanent though. Also they don't do very well if you accidentally paint over them with gloss paint in a poorly lit area :( no.

*mournful blink* they don't. Snails I mean.

Getting back to bees - I've taken to carrying sugar water with me and a dropper to help revive the ones I find on the ground and pavements. You'd be surprised how many you think are dead, that are not - particularly bumble bees. The literally drop mid-flight and then go through something resembling a diabetic coma when they run out of the energy and warmth they need to run their fat little furry selves, poor things :( The way they nest, the loss of one will means the loss of every one of them usually. I did post a cautionary tale in the bug thread some while ago about what not to do if you need to temporarily hospitalise them overnight through a rainstorm. It's where I picked up the dropper advice, from Suzie, for which I am very grateful :) but beyond that I really can't add anything to anyone's knowledge :/

Oops - I lost my edit window. I was having a browse, but due to interruptions, haven't finished reading the link below - so don't know if it's of any use at all in explaining what you saw, but I'll post it anyway in the meantime: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/lasi/sussexplan/dances (until I find out)

It struck me that the University might be interested in what you observed, or might know of someone who is, as there is a lot of research going on at the moment. Unfortunately, the study year is almost at an end though - so overall - this entire post could be just as unhelpful as my last one...

I really don't know much about bees. Not enough to answer your
question, for sure. If you do find an answer, or if you see any other
strange behavior, please let us know.

I remember discussing bees with anniet, but I don't recall suggesting
she carry around sugar water! Although it's a great idea if it helps.
I don't see many bees lying around, myself.

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~Sue~

A week on and I haven't seen the same activity again.

The bees come and go at a rate of one or two every 15 minutes.

5 days ago I watched a string of wasps go in and out of the same roof overhang area through a small hole the bees don't use.

I suspect they were stealing nectar or grubs.

I haven't seen the wasps for the last 3 days... so probably a raid.

The bees are getting rather fat.

I live in a bungalow (one story) and their inlet is right next to my back door and kitchen window.

They never venture into my home (well almost) and I can happily stand outside under their flight path (about 1+ foot above my head) and they dont care..

I went looking for the bodies of the bees doing their strange circle dance the day after but couldn't find any. (Could have easily been lost in the shale \ stones.)

The one thing I did not mention is that all the bees were moving in an anti-clockwise motion.

Again I assumed that they had fallen from the nest \ hive (as they were \ looked young - not bumblish) or had come back after working and had fallen short.

I live in a metropolitan area but my city is rather green so bees (and wasps) are not a strange sight. These ones are darker \ browner than the traditional British yellow \ black concept.

I wish I could have filmed them.

janneseti's thought about bee communication methods..

The circle dance is how bees communicate with each other to show the direction were to find more pollen.
Usually they do that in a bee hive.

... may explain their syncronicity and some other factor (like collecting pollen from a small group of contaminated plants) might explain why they did not make the hive and ended up as a small group..

their motions of circle dancing in an anti-clockwise motion outside of the hive on the ground (the last place they could physically be) might just be instinct.

The anti-clockwise motion though of 'all' those bees on the ground is interesting!?

It made me think of the Coriolis effect (earth spin \ magnetic stuff...) but unsure?

Anyways I watch the bumbles come into land through my kitchen window come into land in the small area in the roof overhang and it reminds me of fat carrier planes wafted by the wind but determined to land..

I'm getting an affection for these guys.

I dread to think what they are doing to my loft though... Perhaps I will get honey dripping through my ceiling. :))

I dread to think what they are doing to my loft though... Perhaps I will get honey dripping through my ceiling. :))

Do you have access to that space? It might be a good idea to investigate.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I dread to think what they are doing to my loft though... Perhaps I will get honey dripping through my ceiling. :))

Do you have access to that space? It might be a good idea to investigate.

The loft hatch is sort of diagonally opposite to the area the bees live so I would need to crawl across the rafters some 10 meters+?

That would be crawl over the stupid landlords un-sealed blocks of fibre-glass insulation that give off particles and stick in everything including eyeballs and lungs.

I am not really too concerned about a bee colony (especially if they are hard enough to find a place amongst the fibre-glass) living up above.

2 properties ago I lived in the top flat (apartment?) and there was a wasp colony.

The darn beasts weren't satisfied swarming from the roof \ loft acroos the local area but would come down the cavity walls and find ways out where the electric sockets hadn't been properly plastered in as well as the wall vents.

I was stung quite a few times just rolling over in bed.

In the end I put on some rubber gloves, covered my head and face with a dampened cloth and stuck my hand into the loft hatch and expelled a whole can of fly \ wasp killer.

1 day later I went up to look.

I was ashamed. there were hundreds upon hundreds of wasp bodies scattered about.

I went up into the loft and at the gable end was an enourmous (now dead) hive structure.

Probably had been building for several years. 1.5 metres across 2 metres high and third of a metre deep.

It was a kind of mix of swirled milky coffee and toffee colour.

Beautiful and complex. It looked like something H.R. Giger might have drawn ('Alien').

Took 6 black bin bags to remove and I sprayed the wall with a mix of white spirits and bleach to ward off any new colony.

... But I will never forget that carpet of dead wasp bodies... They may be insects but still :(

Also I think my bee colony is quite small atm.

I'm no bee keeper but I think after this year I am going have to build a box near their inlet and "worry" them into moving home...

I do like watching them coming home though... heavily laden, wibbly in flight and all gimbled out .

(I'll be talking to them next... <eek.>)

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