I spent some time with my bees today. I could hear the hive humming. The air was thick with bees coming and going on this very windy day. I love observing new things with my hive. Today, I spotted a very black bee.
I think the bee on the left is a young one. Quite often, the young ones are much more golden in color. But what about the blackish bee? She was fanning her wings with some of the guard bees at the entrance, perfectly at home, and was fully accepted as belonging to the hive.
I think the bee on the left is a young one. Quite often, the young ones are much more golden in color. But what about the blackish bee? She was fanning her wings with some of the guard bees at the entrance, perfectly at home, and was fully accepted as belonging to the hive.
I tried to get her on my finger, but she was focused on her duties and I interrupted her.
She had crawled away from me and then wanted back up at the entrance. You see her climbing toward her guard post.
Below, the blackish bee is on the left, and a drone bee is on the right. The drone has the gold bands around the black and is noticeably larger. When I inquired on a beekeeping group in Boulder, Colorado about this bee, I received this reply from decades long beekeeper and expert, Tom Theobald., "Probably no cause for concern. The packages we brought from California were bees from Italian queens (yellow), but with new queens that are Carniolan (grey or black), so as the package bees age and die off the color of the colony shifts to grey... or...bees are very accepting of strangers during a honey flow and will accept bees from other colonies that come in loaded, so there is a lot of drift from one colony to another and this may be the explanation for the dark bee. If the colony isn't worried about it, you shouldn't be either."
I spent time with this little bee (below). I love interacting with tiny life in similar ways that I do with furry animals or birds. Honey bees are quite gentle if they do not feel threatened. They often land on me coming and going from the hive. This little girl was adjusting her pollen load and was seemingly grooming like a cat. There's a fine line between witnessing a healthy, but very tired bee, and one that is just beginning to exhibit signs of exposure to toxins. As the toxins get more absorbed, and the exposure increased, it is unmistakable, but in the very beginning, it's not as clear. A poisoned bee on her way to death, will move erratically, and falter like a drunk losing his/her footing. The movements will be involuntary and non stop. This bee was border line to me. She had some nervous energy, but it could have been severe fatigue. I did get her to go back into the hive to hopefully deliver her load.
Some yoga stretching ...
She was licking off some of the sugar water I dribbled at the entrance to the hive. I also had bees on my fingers with the sticky water. They were lapping it up.
Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus (C.B.P.V.)
In my search about the black bee, I came across this article and learned that some black bees can mean a virus.
"Honey bees that appear black, hairless, and shiny may be infected with Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus also known as Hairless Black Syndrome. The symptoms of this virus appear only in adult bees and include the loss of body hair, trembling, and the inability to fly.
Affected bees are often described as “greasy” in appearance and are frequently seen near the hive entrance or clinging to blades of grass in the immediate vicinity of the hive. Their paralyzed wings are often held at an unusual angle that resembles the letter “K.”
Because the healthy workers in a colony will quickly get rid of the infected bees, Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus rarely takes out a whole colony and is considered only a “minor” honey bee disease. However, if you find large numbers of such bees, the colony can be fortified by supplementing the population with brood from another colony. Usually, an infected hive will recover on its own.
Because some research has shown that susceptibility to the disease may have a genetic component, re-queening a hive may be necessary to prevent future outbreaks.
In my own experience, I have seen these symptoms only twice. Both times I found three or four distinctly greasy-looking bees walking around on the top bars with their wings splayed out. I removed these individuals and never noticed any further evidence of disease.
Don’t panic if you see symptoms of the disease, but stay alert. If the incidence of infected bees seems to increase, consider re-queening. As with most viral diseases, there is no cure for CBPV."
Rusty (source)
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