[rupeshkp]

I see that during night time large number of bees encircle whole night some lights like tube light or bulbs and by morning many of bees have died.
Why do they encircle light?
Why does this death of bees happen?

 

[Riverderwent]

Bees navigate to food and water sources by heading in a direction relative to the sun. When the sun goes down, some of the bees confuse artificial light sources with the sun and try to fly a certain distance with the light source at the same angle to their direction of flight. This works with the sun because only treatment free bees can fly over 93 million miles. However, when a bee passes the artificial light source, the bee has to keep flying in circles around the light to maintain the desired orientation toward the light. After flying the distance the bee expected to have to fly and not finding the expected food, then the bee would attempt to go back to the hive by going around the bulb in the opposite direction. The bees die of exhaustion or exposure. Those are my thoughts. Others may know better. Cheers.

 

[burns375]

Somebody once told me those bees are infected with somekind of parasite, im not sure if thats true or not. I make sure I turn off the porch light or else in the morning I will have a handful of dead bees littered all over the ground. My light is 20 or so ft from the hives.

You could probably experiment with different types of light, perhaps green or red light won't attract them.

 

[crofter]

Maybe they are old foragers attempting to fly "off into the sunset"! Riverderwent , that is an interesting analogy; never thought of reversing rotation as they pass the point of no return on fuel!

 

[rupeshkp]

Thanks all for the replies.
I think what Riverderwent said is correct as the link http://insects.about.com/od/behaviorcommunication/f/insects-attracted-light.htm says the same for insects and bee is also an insect.