[ExI] bees again

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] bees again

On Tue, Jan 1, 2013 at 8:10 PM, spike wrote:
>>... Walking today I noticed a grouping of dead bees on the sidewalk, so I 
> went home, returned with a clean Tupperware container, collected about 
> fifty of them...

>...At first I thought they might just have been sleeping.  But hive bees
usually sleep on the floor of the hive...

Ja.  Now, about four hours later, the same about a third of the bees are
alive, the rest perished.  I wouldn't have thought it was cold enough last
night to kill the bees.

>...So it was probably the temperature got too cold for them to be able to
fly back to the hive. Bees don't fly when the temperature gets down to
approx 50F.  BillK

_______________________________________________

I have a mind to test these for poisons, but it is puzzling that some of the
bees should have completely recovered if they did get poison.  That 2/3
should perish is more consistent with exposure, but doesn't explain how so
many of them were caught out in the open.  The fifty bees were collected all
within a circle of about 20 meter radius.  By the amount of grass nearby,
where they couldn't be found had they landed there, I would estimate a few
hundred bees suffered the same fate.  I am surprised none of the bees showed
any signs of life when I collected them, even though the temperature was
high 50s F by that time around 11am, and some were in direct sunlight on
this clear day.  Most puzzling.

The server might be messing up.  I am not seeing my own messages but I am
seeing replies.

spike