[ExI] bees again

[BillK]

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.  I noticed they were almost all in a feet-down configuration as
> opposed to on their sides or feet-up.  It wasn’t particularly cold last
> night, with a minimum of about 5C, or low 40s F, clear skies.  All stingers
> were intact, no signs of trauma on the bees.  Before I even made it all the
> way back home, I was surprised to see one bee was alive and apparently well,
> flying about inside the container.  Now, about half an hour after I
> collected the lifeless bees, several of them (about eight) appear healthy,
> with another several demonstrating some sign of life, such as a moving leg.
>
>

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

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.

See:
<http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/137706>
(third reply).


BillK