Plain Talk: Fanning Bees (205)

Episode 205 – Fanning Bees

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Jim Tew: Hey listeners, Jim Tew here. I don't know, several years ago, I've always had an interest in swarming and robbing and basic bee biology, but several years ago, as I aged and didn't have as much energy for extracting honey and whatever, I took a lot more interest in what the bees are doing and maybe to have some idea of why they're doing it. I'll never understand completely, but it's like a puzzle. You can study it, you can tinker with it, you can work it as long as you want, but it's a puzzle that certainly I'll never finish.

I want to talk to you for a few minutes about a very mundane topic. Those bees that fan frantically at the colony entrance and, at times, throughout the colony and why they do that. If you would, let's talk about it for a while and see if we can come to some conclusions. I'm Jim Tew. I come to you once a week here at Honey BeeObscura, where I try to talk about something to do with plain talk beekeeping.

Introduction: Welcome to Honey Bee Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast. Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the challenges of managing honeybees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honeybees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honeybees.

Jim: Listeners, if you've kept bees more than probably just a few months, you've seen bees fanning. If the glands are exposed, they're scenting. If nothing is happening, no fanning, no scenting, and their two front feet are in the air, they're guard bees. I'm going to discuss all three of these categories in more detail and just more discussion in a few minutes. For right now, those bees that are fanning like crazy without any other apparent reason, those bees are cooling the hive.

Now, you see it took me about 30 seconds of rambling discussion to put this word out there for you. I have said this, I've discussed it, I've told other beekeepers that they're cooling the hive, and yes, they are. The devil is always in the details because it's not just the bees that we can see, but it's bees that are strategically placed throughout the hive to keep that airflow moving along. One bee, two bees, five bees, won't be able to sit on the landing board and then fan vigorously and blow air into the colony. That air is not going to go very far at all. There's all kinds of resistance inside.

The bees inside the colony, apparently, listeners, have to keep that airflow moving by positioning themselves at significant junctures. I really don't know what I'm talking about here, but how else can it be? How else can it be that those bees fanning at the entrance, the ones that we can see, are only a small part of a bigger picture of ventilation needs? As it comes to mind, how did those bees decide to fan?

There's a complex situation going on here, a complex behavior that I've always just given lip service to. Now, it's a good time to tell you, I don't want to be all sappy and, oh my stars, it's another bee miracle, because it's just my ignorance. It's not a miracle that they're doing this. It's just my lack of understanding on how they're doing it.

We do know from good solid science that the bees have to keep that brood nest at around 90 to 99 degrees in order to incubate and produce brood. During the summer months, late June, July, they're still producing brood. They're still knocking out baby bees. If that temperature gets above that, then they've got to cool it down.

Some wise person amongst you should ask, well, what happens? Exactly what happens if the brood overheats? I don't know. Could I guess that my first hypothesis would be that some comical metabolic behavior is upset, some enzymatic function doesn't occur because it's outside of his temperature range? I don't exactly know what happens if the temperature becomes too hot that causes the brood not to develop or even die.

As a quick aside, we do know that if the brood dies, then worker bees eat that brood, especially if it's larvae, and they'll apparently eat parts of it if it's pupae. Then the skins and the parts they couldn't eat are cast out, sooner or later, tossed out front in the hive's compost pile. This fanning bee is set up to draw a waft of air into the colony where I have hypothesized that other bees keep the waft going because I and other beekeepers have shown beginning beekeepers that on one side of the hive, you can see that it's intake air, and on the other side of the hive, you can see that it's exhaust air.

These fanning bees are serving a really specific function. Later on, I'll probably mention again that, yes, they get tired. Those bees that are standing there, you know when you used to go to the county fair, there was those huge trailer loads of generators that would provide all the electrical power for the county fair. I was always amazed to go up to those huge machines to see them running at full power to generate electricity to keep the carnival rides and all the lights going on the amusement park grounds. I almost think of that with these fanning bees as they furiously fan to keep that air going. Unlike those generators, they get tired and they take a break.

I can't help but wonder when that bee shuts down, apparently, other bees, based on their perception of the colony's needs at that time, make the single decision that they need to fan. I don't know exactly how this works, but it is a generalized decision-making process made by individuals rather than seemingly by a central authority.

Now, I say that with little background information to support it. Maybe there's pheromonal activity. I don't understand. Then once again, try not to get all mysterious about bees. Maybe there's some game afoot that I don't know about in this way. Somehow, if that bee fatigues, other bees standing nearby pick up the task and keep it going in greater or lesser numbers, depending on the heating need inside the colony. I've drawn a lot of odd conclusions and made a lot of wild guesses that others with a lot more experience than I can shoot a hole in. While I get myself under control, let's hear a word from our sponsor.

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Jim: Not only is temperature controlled, but humidity is also controlled. It's a crucial behavior during nectar processing time. When bees collect nectar, it's anywhere from 40% to 80% water. To change this nectar into honey, which is going to be around, what, 18.6%, at least lower than 20%, or it'll ferment, bees use that airflow to promote evaporation. They do a lot of this at night, too, to evaporate the moisture out of that honey. Can I guess yet again that if it were really hot somewhere in the south or the southwest, it's really hot at night, I suppose they would fan at night if anything was in a cooler. Now, I'm off the subject.

This moisture removal from nectar to reduce it down to honey is significant and important to the bees to manage to do that. Once again, it's those individual bees making individual decision that fanning needs to be done, that the humidity is wrong. This just sounds like the kind of thing that, just a few years from now, I will come back to you and say, "Boy, I was wrong about that. It's not individual bees, it's whatever." Right now, it looks like it's individual bees making individual decisions as to what needs to be done for the temperature of the brood and for the moisture removal of nectar. That is primarily done by fanning bees.

Even here in Northwest Ohio, there are times of the year when there are spectacular numbers of bees on the front of the hive. At that time, on those warm days, it's going to be hot days probably, in order to control temperature inside the colony, those bees just got out. They literally went and sat on the front porch. They got out of the hive to do their part in cooling the brood nest down. They've removed all of that biomass that on you see the front of the hive. That was inside the hive, unintentionally generating heat just by metabolically being alive.

Those kind of things happened to, at times, to help the bees that are still fanning inside. When I watch those bees on the front, they seem to congest the entrance. I don't know how the fanning bees are able to carry their job on because those bees that are all matted out front have also jammed up the entrance in many cases. Is that a defective artifact of our hive design? Is there something going on that lets those bees function in their fanning job with all these bees in the way? Literally. It's an ongoing job. It happens all the time.

This fanning coordination happens, as I've said, probably between bees that are of an age, not the young bees, probably the middle-aged to older bees. The younger bees have better gland development, I guess, more stamina, more youthful vim and vigor. As the bees age, it seems like different systems come into play. At any given time though, all bees will be fanning. It's just going to be bees that are on the job. I don't know why those bees were chosen.

At that very minute that those bees are fanning, there's bees that are out scouting, and there's bees that are cleaning nests. It's a selection process that we can only gather that those bees are making those decisions that here and now, in this place and time where I am, this stimuli is encouraging me to do this particular task. The particular task is intriguing me right now is this fanning thing. As the bees get tired, they basically take a break. It's heavy and hard to do with their wing musculature. They pay a price for doing this.

I had always assumed, which is always a dangerous word to assume anything, that the bees were making a global effort to maintain the environment inside the nest, in my case, inside my hive. In a way, they are. In a more detailed way, they're also working intently to control the temperature in specific areas. For instance, they may be working to keep the brood nest temperature under control. If it's in late June, early July and nectar has come in, then other bees may be at the top of the colony fanning profusely to keep an airflow passing over nectar to reduce moisture in honey. At the same time, there's more than one game going on.

There's the game to keep the bees cool, to keep the brood cool. At the same time, there is a game going on to keep moisture coming out of the nectar so that that honey product can ultimately be formed. One of the things that would immediately arise, and if you don't ask the question, I will, then what if I have upper entrances? What if I board one of those damnable auger holes?

I know I just offended someone who uses those, but I never have been crazy about auger holes board in my equipment. I don't always slip the top deep back. If I've got three deeps on between the third and second deep-- let me reverse that. Between the second and the third deep, I would slip that top deep back about a quarter of an inch, so they have a long opening along the front of the colony and a long opening along the back of the colony.

A good place to get off the subject again, bees do seem to use that as a ventilation site, but they don't always use it as an entrance. They tend to use one universal entrance. A dangerous thing to say, because as sure as I do, we'll all see bees coming in alternative entrances, but they also then direct that airflow there. I would have to think that somehow bees know where those entrances are for getting air in and for getting air out.

The cool thing is, the neat thing is, a subdivision of all of this is water foragers. They have to coordinate with the fanning bees. Water foragers get the word to go get water, and then they go to my neighbor's swimming pool, they go to my neighbor's bird bath, they get water somewhere, and they bring it back. I'm intrigued by the fact that they work in harmony with those bees that are then fanning because they'll bring that water back. They'll either give it to house bees, or they'll go up into the nest, and they'll regurgitate water.

I've seen water in pools on the top of burr comb, on frame top bars, just little pools of water there. Kim used to say it was a gallon a day that these bees were bringing back. I have no idea if a gallon a day meets the colony's needs. If that's a lot, if it's a little, it's just a random number that I've heard another presenter give.

Isn't it interesting that these bees fly out, bring back water to work it in concert with those bees that are fanning vigorously to use that water in an evaporative process? Isn't it interesting that during that evaporative process, to keep the brood cool, that would not be a particularly good thing up in the extracting supers, where they're trying to take out moisture from the nectar? One is producing moisture as a byproduct, humidity as a byproduct, and then the other is trying to remove humidity as a byproduct.

As I have been considering this particular interest right now in my bee life, I'm not on robbing bees, I'm not on guard bees or scalp bees. Basically, I'm trying to understand the uniqueness of these designated bees that fan like crazy to cool the hive or to remove nectar, remove water from the nectar.

It's easy to confuse these bees with bees I've mentioned already in the opening comments here. It's easy to confuse these bees with guard bees, but those bees are on a particularly different mindset, and they, too, are just as temporal as the fanning bees are. They're just for the moment. Then those bees that are scenting and putting out a pheromone field, they, too, are in a particular mindset.

Oh, wow, I'm out of time. This went much faster than I intended for it to because there's still so much else that could be discussed here. At this point, let me just say that these are vital bees. This is a vital function to nest environmental condition maintenance, and we see it all the time. It's profoundly more complex than I ever realized. Then again, what aspect of bee biology inside the hive is not profoundly complex? Can we talk about things like this again sometime? I do love thinking about bee biology and trying to understand why they do what they do. Until we can talk again, I'm Jim telling you bye.

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