From the apiary.
I’ve been finding this and that posts about bee mortality and what we think is their awareness of death. It’s a very curious question to me actually and I wish I knew for sure.
I’ve seen posts saying that bees feel when they are coming to the end of their lives and will leave the hive to save the hive having to remove them.
I’ve seen posts about bees not returning to the hive at night because they dont want to die there, but they will return in the morning hours if they survive the night.
Drones dont agree with these theories as they have to be kicked out to die in the fall. The hive knows they can’t keep anything that won’t support the hive and drones are just an extra mouth to feed that don’t do any work in the hive.
I don’t really know what their awareness is or if they grieve losses. I don’t even know if they have emotions, although I’d like to think they do.
But, as a beekeeper I know where my mind is at. I feel sad when I see dead bees. I mourn losses of hives and I want them all to succeed.
They are a living breathing creature and they fascinate me. The little quirks of each individual hive is unique and each bee has a similar type of pattern but is its own personality.
I never imagined wanting to let them crawl on my hand or across my veil directly in front of my face, but I do. So when I find a bee like this one on my porch rail this morning I get curious and wonder why it died there and why it looked so peaceful. I also get sad. It’s just one bee out of the millions that we have in our apiary but it’s a life gone.
Death comes to us all and fall sometimes makes me focus on it more than other seasons. It’s all part of nature and I think we tend to want to ignore this part of the cycle.
~Bev
