Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1875 — Do Bees Sleep ? [ARTICLE]

Do Bees Sleep ?

A. Pettygrew says on this subject: It has not, we think, been proven that bees ever sleep. We have never seen one, either in winter or summer, asleep. Analogy and their very active, industrious ■ nabits would lead to the belief that they do sleep. When, where and how they sleep we have hitherto been unable to discover. In summer they work both night and day and never seem to tire. In early life we thought they worked harder after a day of rest —that is to say, if weather kept all at home for twentyfour hours they were recruited in strength and vigor and* worked better thejlay following. In later years we have considered that in the absence of out-door labor more work was done in the hive. When weather is favorable and honey abundant we know that frequently honey is gathered into hives faster, than the indo'ordaborers —can manage—it accumulates too fast on their hands. The cessation of out-door work for a time enables the bees to remove the accumulations of honey from the - center combs and store it up. in their outer and upper edges. Thus the domestic arrangements are advanced and room made for more honey, and more laborers are set at. liberty to gather it. When bees have no domestic work to attend to, as isukhe case when a swarm is put into a hive of empty combs, they work prodigiously fast. By-and-by the brood and honey of such a hive require much attention. Hence, outdoor work activity seems to abate. But when no bees leave their hives we have never been fortunate enough to find one asleep, or anything like it. In winter bees have few domestic duties to perform and there is no honey to gather. But the question of bees sleeping or hibernating in winter is just as difficult to answer as that of sleeping in summer. I know what others say on this question, but I like to read nature through my own eyes. I have examined hives at all seasons, even when there were twenty degrees of frost, and I never found a bee usleep. Still I do not say that they- never sleep.