Drifting
Bees returning to the wrong hive in a closely spaced apiary.
Beekeeping
Definition
Bees navigate to a remembered position, and identical hives in a row produce steady drift toward the ends. Drifting spreads varroa and disease between colonies and skews colony strength. Wild colonies are typically hundreds of metres apart, which is one of the differences between managed and wild nesting thought to matter for disease.
See also
Other beekeeping terms
Sources
Sources
- The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild — Princeton University Press (2019) · Monograph
- The Biology of the Honey Bee — Harvard University Press (1987) · Textbook
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