[csalt09]

Just wondering how old bees are when they start taking their orientation flight and do they take more than one.

 

[drlonzo]

To answer these questions one would need to know a couple things. First are you speaking of a normal queenright hive that has more than 10 frames, and second Is the volume of workers in the hive covering the frames that it has?

You see under normal as mentioned situation a worker bee can actually live her whole life in the hive. There is nothing that says she MUST become a forager. Under normal situation though for general talk the worker bees normally end up going out of the hive on an orientation flight after a month of life. Most don't live past 60 days in the warm part of the year, but some live many months during the cold winters. Those bees that live through the winter don't take orientation flights till spring in a lot of cases.

 

[csalt09]

Its two full deep and two med supers10 frame and queenright. Maybe 75 percent coverage onsupers frames and complete coverage on the deeps. Reason I ask is the queen just started laying a couple weeks ago and ive been seeing orientation flight over the last couple days. I thought that kind of strange.

 

[RayMarler]

10 days during bee season.

 

[csalt09]

Do they become foragers after their orientation flight? This hive was queenless for a while and it doesn't have to many foragers for the size of the colony.

 

[RayMarler]

after orientation flight, they come back in hive for almost two more weeks, they do nectar and comb management then security detail and then go out for foraging