Stage 1a 1b in bee’s adult life: Cleaning and Feeding Job, developing ability to produce queen feed. So duty is nurse bee
Stage 2. Loosing the ability to produce queen food, but develop the ability to produce wax. So duty is building bee
Stage 3. Loosing the ability to produce wax, but develop the ability to produce venoms. So duty is guard bee
Stage 4. Field bee, the shortest period in the bee’s life (one week) All together a lifespan of 5 weeks. before some are jumping on this, summer bees do not live long because of they are worn out. Have worked so hard that wings no longer can bring them home.
Wax producing bees are not collecting honey from outside the hive, but get it from the house bees. Field bees are just delivering the honey to the house bees then goes for another collection. Sorry MB I am not buying your explanation in its entirety.
Jorn, defintiely the way it goes, BUT...there is also one little thing. Most of the time, even when a bee is older, they can go back and assume any duty that the colony is in need of, UNLESS, their glands are atropied from overuse? This is what I "learned" through reading, if this is incorrect, please correct me, so that I do not go on believing in something that I read that is not scientific fact. Facts are important to me.
Ya, this thing about the wings being worn out from flying in the older bee. That is where I had deep confusion with the symptoms of the varroa destructor. I saw bees crawling around on the ground with frayed wings. If I were more experienced, I probably would have noticed that these bees were "young" bees, not the older foragers, that probably were quite hairless as well, due to the hairs being rubbed off from moving among the colony.
My understanding that baby bees (ones that have newly emerged), like the ones that are decimated by the varroa mite crawling around on the ground, are hairy and soft looking. I did not look at the pooor bees crawling around closely enough. I am sure that I would have seen that they were young babies, probably just born and trying to live their lives.
I saw something so sad last year on the bottomboard of one of the colonies, to think back, it seriously almost makes me still want to cry. I saw several like this actually throughout the summer. I killed them, put them out of their misery. I don't even really want to talk about it, it is so disgusting, but I really think that new beekeepers really need to know all the signs of bad things going on in their hives....I carry on....
I always love to stand beside the colonies in the summertime. I love to look at the bees, and I find that if I stand beside the hives and look down on them, I am not annoying them, nor am I in their flight path. I am of no consequence to them whatsoever and I am ignored, like I did not even exist. Except for the odd curious one that comes to see what I am doing and then buzzes off to better and more interesting things. I sometimes have my morning coffee standing above them watching their wild and crazy moves. There is nothing more beautiful than to have the gift of watching the honeybees and their tiny little goings on in their lives.
I can barely say this, it brings sadness. I saw some bees without wings, infront of their entrance on the bottomboard, going through the motions of fanning, releasing the scent of their Nasonov gland. I honestly believe that they thought they were fanning, their little bums were pointed upwards, with their heads facing down. I guess the instinct is so strong, that even though they did not have wings, they still fanned. They probably believed in themselves and thought that they were doing a great job. I guess they were, perhaps somehow some of the scent was being released in one way or another, I don't know. I knew that they had a doomed life, so I would take them away, one by one, as I saw them and sent them off to a better place, where no varroa could ever bother them again. Have an awesome and great day, Cindi