The First Job Bees Have in Spring is Grim

As spring begins, the surviving bees in the hive pick up their first task of the new year - a gruesome one. Dumping the corpses of the bees that died over winter.

[Kakashi]

Beekeeper here, during the colder climates (this doesn't happen much in warmer climates), the Queen lays the last group of bees to prepare for the wintering of the hive. After that, she stops laying. The last batch of bees are the winter bees, and they are alive longer than any other season hatched bee: they last throughout the whole winter season. Once winter finishes and weather warms up, the Queen goes back to laying and the winter season bees die, hence what you see in the video.

We call the bees hatching for the first time "newbies/newbees", cuz they're new bees and the newbies of the colony haha

[julieenslow]

At 1:00 we see the queen laying eggs. Multiple eggs at one time. Laying workers do that, newly mated queens can do that too - until they get better control. I have never seen a video show that before though. Normally, they don't start pushing the egg out until they have found a cell and put their rear end down in there, and then they only lay one at a time. While this does indeed appear to be a queen - not a laying worker - she does not seem to know what she is doing. My guess is - she is only a week older than that new worker we saw emerge. Just enough time to emerge, dry her wings, gain strength, and do her mating flights. Remarkable footage.

[dollazNzentz]

Honey Bees are my favorite insect. It’s insane their level of ingenuity and instincts.

[pdmings]

Everyone remember to plant a native species flower garden, lets help out all our native species bees!🐝

[grassytiger]

We have a bee hive in our backyard guess I'll wait for the mass burial.

[Hirundo-demersalis]

I kept bees for a few years and know a few other beekeepers, so I can say that unfortunately, many hives will not survive the winter. The lucky ones will be left with hundreds of corpses to clear out, as you see here.
For example, one year, only one of my two hives made it through the winter, only to contract honeybee dysentery and die off soon after, while last year, it simply got too cold during the Arctic Mass event, and neither survived at all. This year, the winter was milder where I live, and two of my fellow beekeeper’s hives made it so far.
The great thing about bees is how quickly they can spring back from a near-collapse, so long as the queen survives, and can soon become a hard-working colony numbering in the hundreds of thousands by late spring, even after only a few hundred made it through winter. I’m amazed by their resilience!

So it makes me think, if bees can survive and rebuild despite the disaster, so can we after the virus.

[Wildstar]

Doctor bees, coroner bees, undertaker bees all have their place in the hive.

[donnydont]

"These are winter bees, they're dead now". Yeah, thanks for the detailed explanation.

[malohn]

Imagine being a bee with social anxiety

[horsepower]

Bees...our little winged friends. A lot of the food we eat comes only thanks to bees. So think about that before you take out a can of Raid when you see a bee flying on your window.

[dracodracarys]

the bee grim reaper

_the grim beeper_

[rwalper]

So that's what all the buzz was about...

[sethbenkunsky]

The timing of this video release is rather grim.

[layfonal]

F for the winter bees and their service

[baralah]

The voice sounds
Hey, you're the Porsche guy, the voice that inspires people to work hard and drive hard!!

[endutubecensorship]

I remember watching our be hive as a kid. My Dad made a "deck" for them to land on. Some would come back with so much pollen they would crash and flip over, a group of other bees would come and flip her over and they all walked into the hive. Good times

[batotit]

Bee1: Can I keep uncle's right leg? It's a good back scratcher.
Bee2: No!

[Don_Vader]

Bees during spring/summer : I am once again asking for a sip of your sweet drink.

[Madmen]

They have no sense of independent life, theirs is a collective identity.

[joetylerdale]

Wow, I was just talking to Bumble before Winter, and I wake up and he's gone! Oh, hi there, Busy! How are you?