Good morning all, as promised, here are a few follow up photos of the “housekeeping” task of removing the dead from two differnt hives, taken a tad after dawn this morning. 

Hive #1, below:

In the photo above, you can see the dead honey bee outside the hive entrance, tongue in the air.

The bee above her seems poised to carry her further away. 

 

 

 

 

Within a few minutes, (above) she is moved to the side of the entrance, and then is removed completely.

Hive # 2 – below:

Similarly, ( I love this hive and its gorgeous propolis entrance), the honey bee corpse is seen at the hive entrance.

awaiting further action from the hive.

The alive bee above appears to have her eye trained upon the corpse, and is, perhaps, gathering her strength 

to carry the dead honey bee further from the hive. The photos I had of the “carrying” were blurry as the dawn light 

was dimmer than appears in these photos, and any movement captured in a photo was not at all in focus.

 

 

 

Here you can see the hive entrance is cleared, and a forager bee is just returning to the hive with pollen packed

on her back legs. Removing the dead appears to be a practical matter for the honeybee, and the as we explored last post, 

is in the service of the life and health of the hive.

Where do dead honeybees end up?  Returned to the earth, as we all shall be. But, as they are not encased and 

embalmed, they can actually nourish the ground upon which they lay.