Knowledge Base (Actions, Plants, Location, etc.)

Ants are often one of the more common problems that Honey Bees face. Attracted by the scent of nectar and honey, ants tirelessly attempt to invade and overwhelm the bees with numbers.

Bees are especially susceptible to smaller ant species as they are simply too small to sting.

As a defensive measure, bees tend to nest higher up trees, in zones which ants are less likely to crawl up to. And while not available to every species, some use propolis (Propolis is a natural resinous mixture produced by honey bees from substances collected from parts of plants, buds, and exudates) as a sort of sticky trap near the entrance (or where the comb joins to the branch) to trap ants and other insects.

With the understanding that Bees are such important pollinators and a key part of our ecosystem, more efforts have been made to rescue and relocate bees rather than to exterminate them.

Honey Bees (and Stingless Bees) are the only bees that live in a complex Eusocial (living in a cooperative group in which usually one female and several males are reproductively active and the non-breeding individuals care for the young or protect and provide for the group) insect society, so they are especially important to rescue because the extermination of one such hive usually kills thousands of pollinators at one go.

Rescuing the bees involves understanding which Bee species they are, and to understand their behaviour and characteristics.

With the proper knowledge (and equipment) in hand, the bees are removed at the correct time and relocated to safe environments where the bees can continue to live and pollinate.

To learn more about Bee Rescues, please check http://beerescue.com.sg

Die Roll Explained

 1 - 3 : Immediately move to adjacent Location of choice. Go Back 1 Colony Size. - This outcome is the result of a failed Bee Rescue. Especially if the Queen flies off and abandons the nest, the Colony will do its best to follow. Usually in the chaos, there will be lost bees (and hence loss of Colony Size)

4 - 6: Immediately move to Bee Sanctuary Location. Lose up to 2 Nectar & Pollen. - This outcome is the result of a successful Bee Rescue. The nest is removed and relocated to a Bee Sanctuary. And while utmost care is taken to ensure the survival of the bees, Bee Nests are NOT designed to be transported and this can lead to some losses where their nest is concerned.

Why are Bee Rescues often done at night?

Locally anyway, Bee Rescues are often attempted in the evening/night. Bee vision tends to lean more towards the UV (Ultraviolet) spectrum which gives them very poor vision at night.

This means that bees are less likely to want to fly "blind" during the rescue. Rescuing as many bees as possible is crucial in a rescue as the Colony will naturally suffer some losses from their enforced move.

Rescues done in daylight can be very messy as a lot of the Colony will fly off, but on the occasions when there is no choice but to rescue in the day (people are sometimes panicky and may not want to wait), I proceed in the day and do the best I can. 

Why do Bee Rescuers on youtube do it without protective equipment?

Quite a substantial amount of the YouTube content on bees comes from the USA. As such, the Honey Bee species they are dealing with is the Western Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)

The Western Honey Bee has been continually bred to be the most calm and domesticated bee species. Under the correct conditions, there is little need for protective equipment.

In Singapore on the other hand, every Honey Bee species is wild and their nest should not be approached without proper protective equipment. Read the section on Spotted! to get a better idea of what to do when you spot bees.

Bee Robbing is the process of bees from one colony (usually a stronger colony or a larger species of Bee) invading another colony for the purpose of stealing nectar and pollen.

While this may seem like needlessly cruel behaviour, it makes perfect sense for the robbing bees as they know exactly what they need is available in another nest.

This survival of the fittest mentality could perhaps be seen as beneficial to Bees in general as they weed out weaker bees. 

And perhaps the threat of stronger colonies nearby can actually persuade weaker colonies to move, which in turn helps to spread bees out to pollinate different sections of flora on our island.

Why is Bee Robbing only done by Asian and Giant Honey Bee?

Because they are physically larger bees, it is easier for them to bypass the defenses of other bees. They also grow to much larger colony sizes so their numbers help them in their theft of resources.

As a small country with a constant need to develop our land for housing, transportation and other infrastructural needs, Deforestation is unfortunately a big problem for Honey Bees and other wildlife in Singapore.

Currently, Singapore has only 3% of our Primary Forests left. Primary Forests are Forests completely untouched by people and have the highest range of biodiversity. Secondary Forests make up 20% of Singapore’s land cover but Singapore’s current plans call for deforestation of up to 53% of our Secondary Forests.

Deforestation of any kind has a massive impact on biodiversity because it immediately destroys flora and fauna, which also leads to the destruction of nesting sites and food sources for Honey Bees. The impact on Honey Bees is that they are continually forced into urban areas because their natural habitats have been destroyed.  Living or even moving through an urban area puts these bees at a high risk of extermination.

Another problem noted by researchers is that our forests are often fragmented due to land clearance for development. This means that living and foraging areas can be discontinuous, and Honey Bees are forced into greater contact with people and have to expend greater effort looking for food and nesting sites.

Honey Bees have a remarkable array of senses to help them Forage.

They have a very keen sense of smell and can detect scents of nectar and pollen from up to 1km away.

Bee vision leans more towards the Ultraviolet range and this allows them to see patterns in flowers that are not visible to the human eye. Plants have evolved to have flowers that provide information to pollinators such as where to land, and marking out exactly where the pollen is.

Honey Bees are also capable of detecting weak magnetic fields on their antenna. Check in the Plants section below on how static electricity plays a part in bee foraging.

Spotted Honey Bee colonies are always at risk of extermination. This is the one thing this game really hopes to change!

1. To properly understand the risk of Honey Bees (covered in Spotted! section)

2. Honey Bees are important pollinators! No other pollinators are exterminated. There is a need to declassify Honey Bees as pests and to understand that there are alternatives to extermination

Extermination is done by spraying chemicals in a mist form on the nest and the bees. This process kills thousands of bees in minutes.

Die roll explained

5 - 6: Restart at Colony Size I at Location of choice - With only a very slim chance of this happening, sometimes the extermination is not done correctly or in the case of Asian Honey Bees, the Queen is in another section of the cavity and escapes the initial blast of chemicals. The Queen and surviving Worker Bees escape and fly off to start another colony (but suffer great losses in worker numbers)

Home gardeners, especially ones that do it organically, can contribute to the overall biodiversity of a place. 

While it may not be in the intention of the gardener, planting fruiting or flowering plants in our homes and HDB corridors can feed our pollinators. And in return, the process of pollination ensures a great bounty of fruit!

Home and community gardens serve as in-between spaces of green that:

• A source of food for pollinators

• Connectors with other green spaces, allowing the pollinators a point to break flight and rest, thereby increasing the range and area these pollinators can work in.

Habitat Enhancement is an important initiative carried out by National Parks Board in helping to achieve the Nation's goal of being a City in Nature.

• Planting relevant plants at or close to habitats of pollinators like bees for food and shelter.

• Planting pollinator-friendly flora to create a corridor for pollinators to travel to and through at roadside kerbs and road dividers.

• Where possible, a rewilding process is also put in place where Nature is allowed to take its own course to grow

All these help to ensure the health of our bees and other pollinators, increase the range in which they can pollinate, and maintaining the biodiversity in our ecosystem in a sustainable manner.

Nest Defense is generally handled by Guard Bees (Worker Bees in the second third of their lives). Here are some of the ways bees defend against external threats:

• Foraging workers collect tree resin to make Propolis which can be used to seal of weak points or to create a choke point to make defense easier. It is sticky in our climate and is difficult for insects to walk through.

• A Shimmer wave done by multiple bees raising of their abdomen to create a wave-like formation akin to the Mexican wave. This is especially useful for defending against flying invaders like hornets or birds as it creates an illusion of a much larger organism. As seen in the video below, Giant Honey Bees are keeping a hornet at bay with shimmer waves. 

• Observed in the Japanese variant of Asian Honey Bee, the guard bees ball up against larger predators and vibrate their wing muscles to basically "cook" the invader with heat

Giant Honey Bees cannot really be rescued or relocated because they are too wild. When any aggressor approaches within 10 meters of their nest, up to 80% of the colony is already prepared to fly off at a notice to attack them.

Hence, with Giant Honey Bee colonies, the attempt to rescue them is to shoo them off the current site (which might be a little too close to human activity). 

This is usually done in the morning or early afternoon so that the Giant Honey Bees can regroup and move on to another nest site. If it is too close to sun down, they will persist in the area because they do not want to fly in the dark.

Included below is a Flowchart on what you can do if you happen to spot Honey Bees.

Our actions and choices when we spot them play a large role in how our Honey Bees are managed.

For example, in Singapore, when spotted in Forest settings, Honey Bees are often left alone unless they pose a threat to humans. Unfortunately, in situations where the Honey Bees nest close to pathways and other structures built for human use, they are usually exterminated rather than relocated/ rescued.

When Honey Bees are spotted in urban settings, the jurisdiction of responsibility lies with Town Councils. Most also have a practice of extermination although Bee Rescue organisations are trying to work with Town Councils to shift this policy towards relocation/rescues instead. This game hopes to shift mindsets towards declassifying Honey Bees as pests and we hope more people will tolerate their presence, and where possible, ask the relevant authorities to consider bee rescues instead of extermination.

While not exactly a predator, the larvae of Wax Moths are a major problem for Honey Bees.

Honey Bee combs are made entirely out of wax exuded by Worker Bees. Wax is not a very common material found in nature, so Honey Bee combs are specifically targeted by Wax Moths because the wax is what the Wax Moth larvae feed on.

Honey Bees are particularly vulnerable to Wax Moths when there is more comb than there are Worker Bees to manage the space (like after a mating swarm and half the Workers have left with the old Queen). Wax Moths will lay their eggs on the comb but with insufficient Workers, the Colony is not able to clean out such eggs immediately.

In such cases, when the Wax Moth eggs reach the larvae stage, they will immediately start burrowing through the comb and line the resulting tunnels with a silken web. This results in the destruction of the cells in the comb and often forces the Honey Bees to abandon the nest.

Bee populations are declining worldwide. Colony Collapse Disorder is a condition used to describe the death of an entire colony overnight, and it is happening more and more often.

Among the speculated reasons for this sharp decline of bees, widespread use of pesticides and insecticides is one of the problem that affects bees worldwide.

Pesticides have now been found in Honey samples from all the continents (except Antarctica, which has no bees) and almost half of these samples contain between two and five different pesticides.

Bee Nutrition

Bee Nutrition is primarily made up of Nectar and Pollen.

Plants produce nectar as a means of attracting pollinators to the flower. Bees use their proboscis (elongated sucking mouthpart) to suck up the nectar and store it in their nectar stomach. Upon return to the nest, this nectar is transferred to a Nurse Bee, who will find an available nectar cell to store it in.

To make honey for longer term storage purposes, bees will fan the nectar with their wings to reduce the water content (to about 18%). They will then cap the cell with airtight wax to prevent bacterial or fungal contamination.

While on the flower, the foraging bee will also collect pollen grains for its protein needs. It will collect the pollen and start to move it to its hind legs. During its flight to hundreds of flowers while foraging, the pollen may fall off the hind legs and this is an important part of the pollination process for plants.

Unlike nectar, bees do not consume pollen directly. They place the pollen grain in a cell, mix it with some honey or nectar, and leave it to ferment. The completed product is called bee bread and it meets their protein, minerals, vitamins and amino acid needs.

Image by wirestock on Freepik

When a bee flies, it picks up a positive charge.

Flowers are electrically connected to the earth and pick up a negative charge through electrostatic induction.

Opposite charges attract, so when a bee lands on a flower, the pollen grains defy gravity and leaps onto the body hair of the bee.

Honey Bees can detect weak magnetic fields with their antenna. This actually allows them to make better flower selection while they forage. If a flower has already been visited by a fellow pollinator, the negative static charge will be less, so it will be avoided for better choices.

Main Criteria for Selection of Nest Site

There are 3 main criteria that Honey Bees look out for in a nest site:

1. Shade: Bees love foraging in the sunshine but in a nesting site, they want a shaded area away from direct sunlight. It gets pretty warm in the Tropics and high temperatures are not great for bees and the wax combs they nest in.

2. Food Source: An abundance of food close by is always a great reason to pick a nesting spot. Less distance, less flying, less danger equals a better outcome for the Colony.

3. Lack of Predators: A very important factor. Bees have quite a number of predators, so making sure that none is close by is an important criterion.