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  "description": "Bees spend more of their short lives learning about the environment during orientation flights than they spend foraging. Why are these flights so important, when do they start, and are bees that have yet to take them really 'non-flying bees'? ",
  "path": "/orientation-flights-and-non-flying-bees/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-15T16:00:34.000Z",
  "site": "https://theapiarist.org",
  "tags": [
    "flash mob",
    "Subscribe now"
  ],
  "textContent": "If you go to the apiary in the early afternoon on a lovely day in late May you'll often find the air filled with a swirling mass of bees.\n\nTry following the flight of an individual bee — not always easy — and you'll see she's flying in uneven, ever-widening, spirals as she gains altitude. You'll eventually lose sight of her amongst the hundreds of other bees doing the same thing.\n\nBeginners can, understandably, mistake these flights for swarming activity.\n\nHowever, swarming bees leave the hive in a mad rush and the swarm quickly assumes a 'shape'. The bees don't disperse, but instead become concentrated, eventually settling on a nearby branch or fence post, forming a cluster (the bivouac) around the queen.\n\nOrientation flights at a nuc entrance\n\nIn contrast, these spiralling bees do not rush out of the hive all at once, and they do not settle.\n\nThey (briefly) disappear … off, up and away.\n\nThe activity peaks and then declines.\n\nThe exodus of bees from the hive tails off, and — although it's not really possible to distinguish them — the bees return, mixed up with the nectar- and pollen-laden foragers.\n\nAnd, the entire process may be repeated the following afternoon. The steady stream of foragers going to and fro are temporarily boosted by a 'flash mob' of new flying bees.\n\nThese are young bees on their orientation flights.\n\nThis flight activity is particularly noticeable on a warm, settled, sunny afternoon following a period of poor weather.\n\nForaging may continue even in pretty dire conditions, but orientation flights are a fair weather activity.\n\n### This post is for subscribers only\n\nBecome a member to get access to all content\n\nSubscribe now",
  "title": "Orientation flights and 'non-flying bees'",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-15T18:00:34.951Z"
}