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eliochel

Do honey bees sleep?

It is believed that worker bees don’t sleep until they are foraging age. Until then they are cleaning, nursing the brood, tending the queen, heating the hive, warming the brood, processing the nectar and pollen gathered during the day and distributing food to all hive residents. No wonder they have no time to sleep! However, eventually the worker bee body has aged and changed to foraging after passing through a progression of the duties throughout her life. Those duties changed throughout her life, determined by successive development of a number of glands, ending with the last duty of foraging, which is not a 24/7 duty. So, after all those glands fall into disuse (hypopharyngeal and wax glands for example) in the forager age bee, she has time to rest. Due to lack of daylight and inclement weather, she can't work 24/7 the way she did when she was younger and passing through the progressive duties of house bees temporal polyethism.

And, after all, naps are the prerogative of the senior citizens of any community!

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