07/08/2022
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Historical Honeybee Articles - Beekeeping History
Centuries Old Belief that Bees Can Predict the Weather is Scientifically Proven to be True.
Bee Folklore: Bees as Weather Prophets.
🐝 When bees remain in their hives or fly but a short distance, expect rain (1)
🐝 Bees will not swarm before a storm. (1)
🐝 When bees to distance wing their flight.
Days are warm and skies are bright;
But when their flight ends near their home
Stormy weather is sure to come. (1)
🐝 Bees returning hastily and in large numbers are said to indicate approaching rain, although the weather may be clear. (1)
🐝 A bee was never caught in a shower. (1)
🐝 When many bees enter a hive and none leave it, rain is at hand. Hence the rhyme;
" If bees stay home, Rain will soon come;
If bees fly away, Fine will be the day. " (2)
Many of the ancient writers like Aristotle, Virgil and Pliny, considered bees to be able to predict the weather. For centuries, this ancient knowledge was assumed to be folklore. Over 2,000 years later, researchers have scientifically proven it to be true.
In 2015 researchers discover that bees really do predict the weather.
Trackers reveal that honeybees forecast the weather and plan their work day accordingly. RFID monitoring indicates honeybees work harder before a rainy day
Image: One of the experiment colonies, honeybee Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system and tag-marked workers. a: tag; b: recorder; c: reader. The tag has a diameter of 3 mm and is 0.08 mm thick and weighs 1 mg.
ABSTRACT
Storms are usually accompanied by a drop in temperature, and an increase in wind and barometric pressure and rainfall, which have negative impacts on most activities, survival and reproduction in insects (Gillot, 2005). The majority of studies mainly focused on how the flight activity of various flying insects such as honeybees, bumble bees, horse flies and leafminer were directly influenced by intraday weather changes (Burnett & Hays, 1974; Lundberg, 1980; Casas, 1989; Vicens & Bosch, 2000). However, accumulating evidences showed that animals can make behavioral changes before storms, which is enormously important for their survival in severe weather condition. Before upcoming storms birds unusually chirp and bathe with sand; native frogs croak and hide their eggs masses; spiders spin shorter and produce thicker webs and wasps hide their comb before rains (Galacgac & Balisacan, 2009; Acharya, 2011). In early 1893, honeybees were reported more active before storms (Inwards, 1893). In this study, we compared the working habits of foragers on days that were followed by a sunny day and those that followed by a rainy day using the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) which was developed and manufactured by the Honeybee Research Institute of Jiangxi Agricultural University in collaboration with the Guangzhou Invengo Information Technology Co., Ltd., and we firstly showed that honeybees worked harder before a rainy day.
See Full Article Here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284714080_RFID_monitoring_indicates_honeybees_work_harder_before_a_rainy_day
RFID monitoring indicates honeybees work harder before a rainy day (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284714080_RFID_monitoring_indicates_honeybees_work_harder_before_a_rainy_day
Source:
(1) circa. 1883 ~ Weather Proverbs By Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody Page 55-56
(2) circa. 1882 ~ Arthur's Home Magazine - Volume 50 - Page 87
