Update: My First Experience of a Wild Honey Bee Nest
My First Experience of a Wild Honey Bee Nest
I've learned a great deal from Jenny about Wild Bees in the last year, but sitting with her and observing a wild nest first hand has taken my understanding to a whole new level.
- If a honeybee is born with a deformity that won't allow it to fully support the colony, it voluntarily leaves the nest and perishes.
- Honey production is a very intricate and labor intensive process for the colony so only enough honey to sustain the colony is produced. Imagine the shock to a colony when humans repeatedly remove honey from a nest or managed hive. The adult honey bees are forced to produce more honey to try to meet the colony's needs leading to exhaustion and shortened life/healthspan and disruption of the fine temperature balance impairs development of the young. Both contribute to colony collapse.