Fluro Lights and the bees

I’m guessing at this point that when I get a bunch of bees banging on the window or actually coming into the house after dark. They are lost new flyers. has anyone tried putting a small light over a hive. Or is this just collateral damage? We have just started spring and the spiders are starting to put out webs. So I it seems anti productive to spray the windows with poison as the bees will die either way. . . Rock and a hard place.
I’m happy to sweep the webs away every few days. But I’d rather the girls know where home is. Ok just for a laugh we all know women can’t read maps. It this just an extension of that.

I’m guessing you’re of the older generation…

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Andrew, I’ll overlook the irony that you’ve asked this forum for directions as a guy who thinks women can’t read maps, and try to focus on being helpful as one beek to another - I suggest that maybe your bees are not lost, but intrigued or annoyed by lights shining from your house onto theirs at night. Bright lights at night are among the conditions to avoid when situating a hive, like strong winds, dampness etc.

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@Eva is absolutely right. Lights in line of sight of the hive entrance can be a real problem for the bees at night. The only solution is to point the hive away from nearby lights. We have some landscape lighting near our hive, which doesn’t seem to cause a problem. However, several of the beekeepers at my local club have had to reposition hives after complaints of piles of dead bees under outdoor spotlights at night.

The only light my bees can see at night is the milky way…aren’t I lucky ?
Grin.

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You block out the Moon and other planets then? :smiling_imp:

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Forgot bees don’t have smartphones. Yes I’m an old bastard.

Thanks Eva sometimes I can’t help myself. I might get some shutters. I don’t like the idea of the bees dying for no reason.

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None tonight it seems odd. That was the main point was do you think it could a few new ones that follow directions or this a real issue. Maybe these ones were never going to get home night or day.

Refer back to Eva’s first post in this thread…

Guessing the light issue is the same, Andrew, but no bees this time? Wonder if some have oriented there & survived in the past few days & told the rest not to venture forth?

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I’m sure it is a learning training issue. As the hive is pumping out new bees I was just interested to know if this is just normal redundancy. I realise having a hive in my yard will mean dead bees here and there I just don’t want suicides if I can avoid it. I also apologise for any jokes I make. There was a new bunch of flyers today, tonight not a single bee near the house. I did add an extra brood box last week. So maybe that got them a bit edgy.

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Oops I forgot those. What I was trying to say was that I live in a part of the U.K. Where it’s dark at night. That probably explains why I’ve never heard of bees flying at night

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Apology accepted, I know old habits can be hard to break :sweat_smile:
So about the bees, I think it’s definitely going to help them if you can shield them from too much light at night. It’s reasonable to believe that current guards & foragers from your hive could have learned from those who made it back not to bother investigating lighted landscapes or sources of light, since bees actually make their own maps & teach them to each other :wink: - so a possible reason why you didn’t see any after a few nights? all the same, no reason to make life more difficult for them, as you mentioned.

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