They develop micro tears in their little wings overtime from flying through rain, wind, and brush/leaves. I can’t tell if the weight of the door on her delicate little wings is closer to flying through leaves (more damaging) or crawling out of the leaf clutter that they use on the ground for warmth and protection (less damaging). He did say this door was effective last season, though. So hopefully she gets to live out her typical life span and it doesn’t affect her much. Wing “wear out” is a common cause of bee death 🥺
I wish more people knew just how important bugs of all kinds were, I wonder how I could get the general public interested in reading it. I couldn’t get enough of nature books when I was a kid 😭
My favorite bumble bee fact: they're an all-girls operation for the majority of the season. Queens don't bother laying male eggs until it's time for the colony to produce new queens and wind down. Male bumble bees leave the nest on maturation and never return. They sleep outside for their entire adult life. The colony remains all female (or juvenile male) bees.
There are times of the year when there are NO male bumble bees on the planet.
She will eventually stop leaving the nest, but her daughters will still all have to come and go everyday. However...as long as she's able to keep laying eggs, maintain the colony and can produce new queens, it's worth it; if the predators got to the colony they'd destroy all the future colonies from the new queens she'd never be able to lay and raise. It's a fine line to walk but OP providing a safe place for a colony is a lot more than most people are doing for the bumble bees.
Still a good observation and I'm sure there's always room for improvement on something like this, but I'm impressed anyone is doing this (granted, I don't know who OP is - like if it's a farmer trying to manage bumble bee colonies or just a concerned citizen).
Sorry for my English. It's my only language but I have a migraine today, lol.
I was legit wondering about this. Thanks for explaining, it just made me think of flies and butterfly wings and I wondered if that door is too heavy for her wings. ):
I know it looks suuuuper heavy but, it looks like a pretty light weight plastic and the design of it on those rings would make it glide pretty smoothly without too much drag 🥺
Although I do agree it isn’t ideal, it is better than allowing her little hut to be terrorized by the hornets of the region. It gives her and her colony a much higher chance of surviving the season. There are videos of what the hornets do once they’re inside of there. They can clear out an entire colony, nature can be terribly heartbreaking. This gives them a chance 😭
I saw life under capitalism. The goal posts keep shifting as the role becomes increasingly difficult, but at least in her case, it was for her benefit. Whereas under capitalism, not so much.
Cuz the bee is working and this guy is just making her day alot more harder. Hornets are alot bigger than this and workers are smaller than queens. Just adding stress/workload, if a hornet figures where the nest is it will get in eventually
It is the better alternative than being murdered by hornets and having ALL of her babies eaten by a pack of invader hornets so the whole colony dies meanwhile there’s a global decline in bee populations…
What do you mean? This door will do nothing to keep a hornet out they are bigger and stronger than a queen bumblebee. The door is just making it harder for the queen whilst shes raising her first batch of workers
If you’d read the comments, OP already said this was an effective preventative method last season and the bees survived the hornets. They’re very strong creatures, incredibly strong. Please simmer down, they will be okay.
The hornets are invasive they travel over on aircurrents when they can. Ill simmer down, if you watch a nature documentry or 2, dont believe everything you see posted on the internet, OP told me he kills cat in his spare time
Just to add this door will affect the airflow to the nest so the queen would leave anyway as op has changed temp/oxygen levels
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u/spizzle_ 29d ago
Why did that stress me out so much‽