Bees, and the birds (but not really birds)

My fascination with bees began many years ago. I have always had an interest in self sufficiency since watching episodes of 'The Good Life' back in the UK as a kid, I don't know why the comedic lives of Tom and Barbara Good resonated so much with the young Maximus, but my Mum spent a lot of time in the garden, growing vegetables and flowers and teaching me the ways of the home farmer. Flowers attract bees and even as a young boy I was aware that bees were the friend of mankind and spent hours watching them forage in and around our garden, improving our fruit and vegetable yields, whilst perpetuating their own species.



Later in life I discovered the books of Conan Doyle and read about the life and times of Sherlock Holmes. Apparently it isn't common knowledge that this fictional character took up beekeeping upon retirement. Another resonance in my life, so I think I've always been destined to spend at least some of my time looking after bees - my style of beekeeping is to really let them get on with it and provide them with a nice pest and disease free environment, something that is much easier in this part of Australia than many other parts of the world. We are yet to suffer many of the problems of the rest of the world, such as colony collapse disorder, or the curse of the Varroa mite, which sadly many believe to only be a matter of time.



I spend a lot of my working day on the road, and during winter in Australia many of the normal flying insects which buzz around in summer are hibernating or taking it easy in some other form, so it makes bee spotting very easy. When you have an interest in something it seems to be on your mind a lot and I started to notice bees flying around whenever I was stopped at traffic lights. Bees seem to like to rest on white vehicles too, though I've always been a little concerned when the lights turn green, traffic moves off, and a bee starts to unwittingly hitch a ride. The disaster of a quick rest turning in to a long or possibly unnavigable flight back to the home hive, loss and maybe even death..... dramatic stuff.


So back to the point, as I see so many bees around traffic light junctions, does it mean that bees navigate by road? Everything I have read on the subject tells us how bees use the sun to navigate, and once a food source has been found the bee dances to tell the other bees in the hive where to find the good stuff. This is perfectly acceptable to me. However, as bees are apparently able to use landmarks to know where they live, why shouldn't they also use landmarks to navigate. We can see this in the way that bees in a newly established (either moved or installed) hive will have a navigational expedition on their first morning, rising up into the air to get their bearings and learn their new surroundings. This also goes on with the young worker bees as they grow. The toilet flight as I call it that my girls have in the afternoon (depending upon the season the time during the day of the toilet flight varies) also appears to be an opportunity for the young ladies to rise up and take stock of their surroundings until they are mature enough to go out into the wide world to forage and bring back food for the rest of the hive.

There often seem to be so many bees around road areas, traffic lights and crossroads, and yet if I go on foot around the local area, away from roads and built up areas, I don't see bees taking a regular 'flight path' being used apart from in the near vicinity of any of the wild colonies that I know exist.
It's a weird phenomenon which a few other beekeepers I have discussed it with have now started to notice. If bees use roads to navigate is open to conjecture, but I think it might make sense as roads once built don't very often move so supply a regular non moving landmark.

Bee awareness is massively magnified once you start keeping bees, and whenever I'm out walking the dogs or whatever, its interesting to watch bees on local flora whenever there is a honey flow on. Bushes and trees, literally 'abuzz' with bees bring a smile to my face, as it does when I see a bee alight gently on a car stopped at traffic lights, or one flying along above the traffic in the haphazard way that they do when on a mission either back to the hive, or out to forage. It certainly seems to disprove the phrase 'bee line' as bees in flight often fly along constantly adjusting their course rather than in a direct straight line.

I guess the question left at the end of all of this should then be, do bees stop at red traffic lights?