North by Northwest - Orientation and Disorientation

[FloridaGardener]

So every day after orientation there's a few who end up on the driveway....25 feet from the hives.  Walking. Walking North-by-northwest. Always the same direction.  Bees, for being so small, can walk very fast!

I've put them under super-magnifying lens. No mites. No K wing. No tattered wings (old) bees.  Always young bees, if I give them a drop of honey-water they stick their proboscis out right away take a drink, and some can fly again.

I want to know why.  Not enough food in their crops? Mean guard bees not letting them back in?

So there may be 20 every day on the driveway.  That's a lot! Sometimes when I pick them up and walk to the nearest hive and put them back in, they're welcomed. Sometimes, they turn around and start walking north by northwest again.

Today I was sweeping up some of the "fallen" from the past few days, and saw 4 bees with their heads together.  Guess what? Queenie! ! I have 9 nucs with the emerging-mating phase.  I presume one got disoriented.  Not enough bees for a swarm to have landed on warm concrete that smells like bees.

So now I must go through each nuc (when I'm supposed to be leaving it be) to see who is missing Queenie.  And hope I put her in the correct hive she was orienting in front of.

Any ideas on what's going on....!?

[TheHoneyPump]

Where is the sun at that time of day?  Bees, the old or sick, seem to be instinct programmed to leave the hive by flight or by crawl towards the sun to die as far away from the hive as they can get. 20 bees a day is nothing, minuscule, inconsequential. You could gather up some bees into a sample bottle and ask it to be analyzed by the local lab. The cause could be any number of guesses such as; Tracheal mite, paralysis virus, nosema, pesticide/herbicide, fermented food (alcohol), old, .. and on.
The queen. If it was a nice day, it may have been best to leave her with her troupe.  She was likely out mating and merely taking a rest between passes through the dca.  I see queens in the grass like that occasionally in the mating yards. I use to stress over it and go popping lids to find her home. Thus creating a-lot of unnecessary work for myself and messing up some nucs along the way. I soon backed out and just left them alone to find their way back naturally. So long as the weather is good, they do fine without any help.

Just a few ideas to ponder.

[FloridaGardener]

Oh man.  Rats.  Now she's going to be REALLY disoriented... because for 24 hrs I put her in a clip, in a nuc with stores for the attendants to give her.  Because it was 4 pm, and I was leaving in the car. 

Maybe I'd better take her to another yard, with new frames of nurse bees & open brood, and hopefully she can re-orient...?

I didn't really want to pop tops of 9 nucs and look for unmated queens. 

Didn't think to put out the orange street hockey/traffic cones around her, so she wouldn't get driven over.

[The15thMember]

Where is the sun at that time of day?  Bees, the old or sick, seem to be instinct programmed to leave the hive by flight or by crawl towards the sun to die as far away from the hive as they can get. 20 bees a day is nothing, minuscule, inconsequential. You could gather up some bees into a sample bottle and ask it to be analyzed by the local lab. The cause could be any number of guesses such as; Tracheal mite, paralysis virus, nosema, pesticide/herbicide, fermented food (alcohol), old, .. and on.
The queen. If it was a nice day, it may have been best to leave her with her troupe.  She was likely out mating and merely taking a rest between passes through the dca.  I see queens in the grass like that occasionally in the mating yards. I use to stress over it and go popping lids to find her home. Thus creating a-lot of unnecessary work for myself and messing up some nucs along the way. I soon backed out and just left them alone to find their way back naturally. So long as the weather is good, they do fine without any help.

Just a few ideas to ponder.

Wow, HP, you always have answers for the weird questions!     

[Bee North]

I agree ...cheers H.P

[Ben Framed]

I agree ...cheers H.P

Same here... Thanks HP

[Acebird]

I think I would have moved her to the grass.  Driveways get quite hot down here.  That and they are a sitting target for predators.