Prepare for Winter… It Will Be Cold, and Then It Will Be Warm Again

Abstract

Bee World • VOL 99 • December 2022 • Page 109 © 2022 International Bee Research Association Prepare for Winter... It Will Be Cold, and Then It Will Be Warm Again Three authors from Kyiv, Ukraine, managed under the current circumstances to continue their work on honey bees, submit, and edit a paper in Bee World. Roman Dvykaliuk and colleagues are interested in increasing propolis collection and in learning more about the behaviour of bees as they propolize a structure within the hive. In their study, they compared how bees propolize one frame covered with mesh and two other frame types, presenting the bees with additional stimuli to propolize. The first is an essential oil, and the second is a draught created by inducing a chimney effect. The authors found regularly sized propolis drops on all three frame types in spaces that were inaccessible to bees for further use. How did the propolis drops get there? The authors speculate that the bee’s mandibular gland enzymes may dilute the propolis to an almost liquid phase during the process of propolization. They reference research by the Hungarian author Örösi-Pal, published in Bee World in 1957, who showed that wax and propolis are soluble in a mandibular gland secretion. The drops Dvykaliuk et al. found in the collectors could simply be the result of bees losing the propolis while working with it. This is a very keen hypothesis, and I hope that we will learn more about this exciting behaviour in the future.