I’ve noticed when I leave for work in the mornings that sometimes there are bees (the normal stripy yellow honeybees) lying in the center of my cosmos flowers, their legs totally covered in pollen. They aren’t dead–when I blow on them, they slowly start crawling around, but don’t fly away. What’s the deal with this? Is there some kind of bee-soporific or poisonous ingredient in cosmos pollen that’s drugging them? Do bees always sleep in flowers overnight, but I only happen to notice with the cosmos because they’re big flat open flowers and at eye level?
Shat’s the early morning temperature where you are?
Could “bee” that the cool makes em sluggish.
What’s the early morning temperature where you are?
Could “bee” that the cool makes em sluggish.
I have also noticed sluggish bees that begin to move around as the sun rewarms them.
Morning temperatures are probably in the 50s or 60s. Not too cold. I’m in California near San Francisco.
It could make sense that the chilly night temperatures make them sluggish, but I don’t know why they’re in these flowers as opposed to in their hive.
tiltypig, eh? That’s splendid. I have no idea what it means, but I love the sound of it. It would be a great name for a pub or a band, and its fans would be called tiltypigheads.
AH!
Has there been spraying in your area for West Nile infected mosquitoes?
They might be dying.
We have a tiltypig at home. She is a fat little guinea pig who had an ear infection at one point and now permanently tilts sideways.
How can I find out if they’re spraying for West Nile in my area?
Phone you local public health dept., or check their website.
My gardening books warn me to watch out when gardening in the morning because you may disturb “sleeping” bees. The books say sleeping, but I don’t know if bees actually sleep or not. Do insects sleep at all? (And if so, what do they dream about? Dancing bees?)
I had no idea there was such a thing as a cosmos flower (Google has enlightened me), so the actual content of this thread was radically different from what I expected and somewhat disappointing.
I found the answer!
I’ve been reading this new book called Parasite Rex, by Carl Zimmer, and it had this to say about the bee behavior I observed:
“And if a host is doomed to die [from a parasite infection], it can do its best to spare its kin. At night, [worker bumblebees] stay in the hive, kept warm by the heat of thousands of flapping wing muscles. On its travels for nectar, a bumblebee may be attacked by a parasitic fly, which lays an egg in its body. The parasite matures within the bumblebee, and in the warmth of a beehive its metabolism runs so quickly that it can finish growing up in only ten days. The fly emerges from its host and can infect the rest of the hive. Yet, many parasitic flies don’t get that luxury because their host does something strange: it starts spending its nights outside the hive. By staying out in the cold, the worker slows down the parasite’s development. It also prolongs its own life. . . in this way, the bumblebee prevents an epidemic from breaking out in its hive.”
I’m not sure if this link will work, but you can see the exact page by going to Amazon, using Search Inside This Book and looking up “bumblebees.”
Beekeeper here.
Bees don’t sleep. They literally work themselves to death for 45 days. And then they die.
When it gets cold, bees become more lethargic. That’s all.