Slaughter of the innocents

[FRAMEshift]

While this question probably pertains mostly to bees in the Southeastern US,  I hope folks from other regions will offer their opinions as well.

Here in North Carolina, we have a severe summer dearth, lasting from the middle of July to the end of August..... about 6 weeks total.  This is followed by a weak flow in September and October.     I'm wondering if it would be advisable to remove a percentage of the foragers at the end of the main flow since they are consuming much more than they are bringing in.  Most of these foragers would be dead anyway by the time the September flow starts. 

This could be done by placing a capture bag on one of the entrances and closing the others.  ( My long hives have three 1" holes for entrances.)  The capture bag could be put in place in the afternoon and all the bees in the field at that time would be caught by sundown, when the bag would be removed.  This technique would remove foragers only.   I'm thinking this should save lots of stores without disrupting the functioning of the rest of the colony.  What do you think?

Some questions I have are:
1.What would the effect be on stores?
2. What would the effect be on transition of nurse bees to forager status?
3. What would the effect be on brood production?
4. What percentage of the foragers should be removed?

[AliciaH]

I certainly don't have enough experience to try something like that myself.  But I wonder that if you were willing to donate one hive to the experiment:

4) Pick the hole that the fewest bees are tempted to use (baby experimental steps).

2) If foragers start disappearing and the hive thinks they need that number, won't the younger bees get "promoted" faster?

3) and 1) Should be answered as a result of 4 and 2?

And I'd take a lot of notes!

[AllenF]

Good question.   Most people split or requeen then after  mid July here.  I pull all supers mid July. I know if you leave some on, you loose that honey as they will eat it up.   With nothing coming in brood slows.   But to remove foragers out of a hive should be as easy as moving the hives during mid day when most are out foraging. They come back to a missing hive.  Save on stores some. Brood might stop some, but would never cease like pulling the queen out for mite control.

[iddee]

Many commercial beeks move their hives to a staging area in the middle of the day for just this purpose, then load them in the evening for cooling during the night drive.

They sometimes leave a few weak hives in the area to catch the foragers to boost those weak ones.

I can't answer your questions on the affect of the action.

[FRAMEshift]

2) If foragers start disappearing and the hive thinks they need that number, won't the younger bees get "promoted" faster?

I think they would.  But would that have any negative impact?  I wondered if it might stimulate brood production to replace the lost foragers.  That might waste stores in itself.  But if there are fewer nurse bees because of 'early promotion",  it might not be possible to produce more brood for another 3 week cycle.  And if egg laying did increase, by the time those eggs were ready to be foragers, we would be into the September flow anyway.  Seems to me the worst case is that you end up with the same distribution of foragers but the average age of all the bees is younger.

[Brian D. Bray]

The Bees will always maintain enough work bees to tend the brood regardless of how many foragers it has.

Reducing the number of foragers will speed up the use of stores because the nurse bees, house bees, and brood still need to be fed.

House bees are the bees in flux population wise, but enough need to be maintained for processing nectar into honey, housekeeping chores, and air conditioning (those bees that fan the air into the hive from one side of the entrance, up to the top and down the other side, where other bees fan it out of the hive.

[FRAMEshift]

Reducing the number of foragers will speed up the use of stores because the nurse bees, house bees, and brood still need to be fed.

Brian, I can see that the colony might give priority to house bees especially in a dearth... but I don't understand why you think reducing foragers would increase use of stores.  The nurse bees and brood are being fed anyway.  By removing foragers you are removing bees that are net consumers of stores during a dearth. 

Of course, bees don't have to follow our logic   :-D  but it would make sense that they would not replace foragers one for one during a dearth.  And even if they did, the lag time in making more foragers would get us through the dearth with less consumption.  So I'm missing something in your argument.

[rdy-b]

 I think he is talking about the fact that much less will be coming in the front door
because you have lees foragers-so they will consmue the resources they have at hand
its not that they get used faster -it is that they arent replaced as fast-RDY-B

[FRAMEshift]

I think he is talking about the fact that much less will be coming in the front door
because you have lees foragers-so they will consmue the resources they have at hand
its not that they get used faster -it is that they arent replaced as fast-RDY-B

I see now.  But each forager is consuming more than they bring in, so each one you remove improves the situation.  The dearths here are pretty bad.  In most places further north, I think each forager would still be adding some net increase to stores, but not here.

[rdy-b]

 may be you should think about changing the type of bee maybe Russian
or yugo -I would think if the bee is not programed for this by nature it is going to
be a STRESS factor for them -and thats one of the starting points for problems
   :) RDY-B

[Kathyp]

wouldn't it be easer to feed?

[AllenF]

I have left supers that were not all capped or not enough frames capped to pull and through August  it will get cleaned out as the bees eat the honey during the late summer drought here.   

[FRAMEshift]

wouldn't it be easer to feed?

Wouldn't that stimulate more brood rearing at the exact time you don't want more bees?   If there is no nectar available outside the hive, feeding would just be keeping foragers alive for a few weeks and then they would die without being able to bring in significant nectar.   

We do feed new hives during the dearth since they have insufficient numbers to build up honey stores even when there is a flow.  But in subsequent years I don't see the point of feeding.

[Kathyp]

you do want a lot of brood at the end of the year because those are the ones who winter over.  you also want enough so that when you have that fall flow, weak as it may be, they gather.  if you lose all your foragers in July and august, what gathers in September and October?

[FRAMEshift]

you do want a lot of brood at the end of the year because those are the ones who winter over.  you also want enough so that when you have that fall flow, weak as it may be, they gather.  if you lose all your foragers in July and august, what gathers in September and October?

The bees that gather in September and October won't be the same foragers that are active in July, whether I remove bees or not.  They aren't going to live that long.  Do you think that removing foragers in July will stimulate brood rearing for replacement?   If so, those replacements would be at forager age about the time the September flow starts.

You are right that we need bees to overwinter and I'm not advocating continuing removal of foragers over a long period of time.  But even removing all foragers in mid July should not have much affect on total nectar gathered.