Bees' primary weaknesses stem from a combination of environmental and biological factors, including parasites and diseases, pesticide exposure, poor nutrition due to habitat loss, and climate change. These stressors often interact synergistically to weaken colonies and wild bee populations.
Disease and Pests
Diseases and parasites can do a lot of damage to bees. Bees can become too weak to fly or be unable to reproduce. In some cases, becoming infected can even lead to death. Parasitic tracheal mites are a big problem for bees.
Major factors threatening honey bee health can be divided into four general areas: parasites and pests, pathogens, poor nutrition, and sublethal exposure to pesticides. In reality though, these factors tend to overlap and interact with one another, which complicates issues.
Plants and Herbs
The most pressing threats to long-term bee survival include: Climate change. Habitat loss and fragmentation. Invasive plants and bees.
Smells bees hate
One of the most common scents that deter bees is garlic. To use garlic as a natural bee repellent, you can crush garlic cloves and then mix with water. This mixture can then be sprayed on areas where bees are present, such as around a picnic table or near a garden.
The "3 feet, 3 miles rule" is a beekeeping guideline for moving hives: move them less than 3 feet (so they find the new spot easily using landmarks and scent) or more than 3 miles (so they're forced to reorient to a completely new landscape). Moving them an intermediate distance (e.g., 50 feet to 2 miles) confuses forager bees, causing them to return to the old, empty location and get lost.
To encourage the bees to leave, create a small smoky fire under the beehive. The bees will move once they smell smoke and likely never come back. Move away when you start the fire.
The 7/10 rule in beekeeping is a guideline for when to add a new box (super) to a hive, suggesting you add it when bees have built comb, brood, or stored honey on 7 out of 10 frames in the current box, indicating they need more space and preventing congestion, which can lead to swarming. This proactive expansion supports the colony's growth, reduces stress, and maintains natural hive behavior, but it's also important to consider factors like time of year and overall hive health, not just frame count.
Causes. The anatomy of a bee's sting—fear of bees most commonly comes from a fear of being stung. The fear of being stung is central to the fear of bees. Experiencing a bee sting or knowing someone who has experienced one can increase a fear of bees.
General honeybee aggression
Common sources of attack stimulus for honeybees include alarm pheromone, vibrations, carbon dioxide, hair, and dark colors (Crane 1990). This makes sense because mammals, which are common predators of bees, are usually hairy, dark colored, and exhale carbon dioxide.
Pesticides, pollutants, parasites, diseases, and malnutrition have all been linked to this problem. We consider here neurobiological, ecological, and evolutionary reasons why bees are particularly vulnerable to these environmental stressors.
If bumblebees are not able to fly, they won't be able to live a normal bumblebee life and won't be able to visit flowers to feed properly. It is sad, but there isn't anything people can do about this and they will probably die quite quickly.
Varroa destructor, the Varroa mite, is a parasitic mite that attacks and feeds on honey bees. These mites are currently the greatest threat to beekeepers and their colonies; varroa is the most serious pest of honey bees, inflicting more damage and higher economic costs than all other apicultural diseases.
An 11-year-old boy from Phoenix, Andrew Kunz, miraculously survived after being stung more than 400 times by a swarm of Africanized bees, all while channeling Vegeta from his favorite anime, Dragon Ball Z.
Having a colorful dot on the back of her thorax can make it easier to locate and identify your queen. The other reason to have a marked queen is that you know that a particular queen present in the hive is exactly the same one as before — and not her daughter.
Think all bees look alike? Well we don't all look alike to them, according to a new study that shows honeybees, who have 0.01% of the neurons that humans do, can recognize and remember individual human faces.
Moving a bee hive short distances
If you relocate the hive any further than three feet anywhere inside that radius, your bees will return to the original hive location and wonder where it went. Only a move of less than three feet can be achieved without your foragers needing to completely rebuild their mind map.
Varroa Mites are the #1 enemy of honey bee and beekeepers around the world. These external parasites feed on the blood of adult honey bees, and reproduce on honey bee pupae. They can considerably weaken individual bees, and often vector viruses and other pathogens between bees.
Sugar water can spread disease between bees visiting bee feeders. Whilst it's true the bees could pick up the diseases whilst visiting flowers its far less likely than if the bees are using a bee feeder. Flowers produce miniscule amounts of nectar.
To remove the bees properly, the beekeeper must open the wall to remove the entire colony. If the outside wall is brick, it will require opening the wall from the inside. The bees may be vacuumed up and put in a hive body, or sections of comb may be placed in frames and then placed in a hive.
Use a fast-knockdown “freezing aerosol”. For a large nest, this freezing aerosol will kill the hyper aggressive guard bees posted at the entrance. For a small hive, this may be all you need. Use a residual product such as a dust or residual spray to kill the colony.
Wasps and many bees can sting more than once because they can pull out their stinger without injuring themselves. Honeybees have special hooks on their stinger that keep it in the skin after they sting someone. The stinger is torn out of the bee's body as it tries to fly away.
Follow these October beekeeping tips to keep your bees safe and healthy and make the most of the fall season.