Post #393,795
8/27/14 1:11:13 PM
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Tried an LED Bulb
Here's the problem: the low lumen curly fluorescent porch night light has been gathering bees, about 100 / day. All apparently arrive at the break of dawn. By 7:00AM Most are already dead or dying, but some fly away if I turn off the light.
I see very few around during the day and have no idea where they come from - I didn't used to have this problem. I tried several color temperatures - none attracted fewer bees.
So, I got the LED Bulb - 45W equiv. Yesterday evening at 10:30 PM there was 1 bee. At about 6:45 AM there were at least 150 dead and another 150 clustered above the bulb (they clustered below the curly fluorescents).
Turned off the light immediately. As of 10AM half the clustered ones had joined the dead and dying. The other half were still clustered above the light.
This is definitely a problem.
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Post #393,803
8/27/14 2:34:59 PM
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Have you tried a pure yellow light?
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Post #393,812
8/27/14 4:15:56 PM
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Not yet, but I will.
Of course yellow lights aren't "Pure Yellow", they have minor tones from the blue range, but may work. My usual bulb vendor, 1000 Bulbs, has those in 13W curly tubes.
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Post #394,120
9/5/14 12:27:10 PM
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Failure.
The yellow bug light is too dim to be useful. It does attract fewer bees, though not a lot fewer, and seems to be very deadly. There are only a few around the bulb, but the porch is littered with the dead.
This is very mysterious to me. They have to come in at the crack of dawn, and are dead just a couple hours later.
It is also mysterious to me why this was not a problem for over 30 years, and now is a big problem.
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Post #394,121
9/5/14 12:31:04 PM
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do the bees die if you dont use a light at all for one night?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
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Post #394,124
9/5/14 12:44:17 PM
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I do not know - not here - but somewhere else?
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Post #394,125
9/5/14 12:51:59 PM
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What I do know is, if the light is off in the evening . . .
. . I get bees through the windows and they start bouncing off the dining room lights. Guests find this disturbing.
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Post #394,128
9/5/14 1:37:12 PM
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hmm, wonder what the attraction is? strange
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 59 years. meep
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Post #394,134
9/5/14 2:04:27 PM
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Hive nearby?
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Post #394,147
9/5/14 6:55:07 PM
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Re: Hive nearby?
I know of no hive nearby. If there were one close, I'd see a lot of bees going to and fro. During the day I see almost no bees at all around here.
Looking out there around midnight, or even the wee hours, there might be one bee bouncing off the light. I have never seen them arriving because I get up when there is enough light to see by, but usually well before there is any direct sunlight. By this time there will already be a lot of dead bees on the porch - and no more arriving. I have never seen any arriving.
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Post #394,137
9/5/14 4:10:14 PM
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Never having observed/noticed a bee at night .... puzzlement. Hypothesis:
May hap ... nicotinoids in the new Corporate Kill-ALL-with one $$$saving Application, have deranged the susceptibles in the colony? LOTS of susceptibles.
(Think about how little of some Substance-X might have deranged the Murdochs, CIEIOs, Cheneys? within the most pestilent species ever brewed-up by deranged-Chance?)
What if we are ALL Slaves to Demon-Probability and certain/rare such possible- molecular assemblages?
Per XKCD: Astatine, for example: does Not Want To Exist: get a few molecules of That-together and they 'catch-fire' violently, to the point: that no one has ever SEEN! even micro-size samples of this Element. (Nope, not even the μGm specks via which Seaborg got first real data about Pu's chemistry.)
The (local-) Universe is weirder than our poor power to make human-killing and species-eliminating toxins du jour. Prey either Way: as to hoping we get ?better? at the snuffing of most-anything that was ever once alive. :-/
Are we not a whole-lot like living-Astatine? (while making metaphor-games for fun & profit while screwing all other Considerations.) Hey, isn't that what 99% of Corporations DO? Rest case. For the nonce.
Ergo: At is NOT the bee-killer substance; on to the next quadrillion+ combos :-/
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Post #394,152
9/5/14 8:46:39 PM
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Zombie flies?
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Post #394,153
9/5/14 9:03:31 PM
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Interesting. :-(
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Post #394,154
9/5/14 9:04:58 PM
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Great sleuthing! Thanks.. in my area, too :-/
As I don't have night-lites except on motion-detectors, ns-see-um.
Maybe will leave one on.. and see if it's right-In my bailiwick. Will pass-around to local troops:
clearly this is some neural derangement, but in terminal phase. Have to see if N. Califonia is rife? or thus far unique.
(The Good-news! ..just seems to become more piddling; a small victory re some misanthrope CEO, a few nasty Pols getting a long-evaded comeuppance.)
A 0-endorphin diet in homo-saps ... over time might catalyze similar alterations, as in these poor Bees.
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Post #394,123
9/5/14 12:43:41 PM
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Maybe a lamp cover
Keep the bees from actually touching the bulb. Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
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Post #394,138
9/5/14 4:11:31 PM
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Thinking! ... our species short-suit..
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Post #393,805
8/27/14 2:54:48 PM
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White LEDs aren't "white".
They're blue plus a phosphor that adds some yellow/red. It looks white to us, but likely not to any other animal with different eye sensors.  The bees are probably excited by the intense blue light around 450 nm, is my guess. As to what to do, maybe put the light on a timer so it's only on when the bees aren't active? HTH a little. Good luck. Cheers, Scott.
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Post #393,814
8/27/14 4:53:03 PM
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Hope this isn't a common occurrence elsewhere, or we'd have heard (??)
My febrile imagination wonders if this is yet another corroboration of a connection to the New-more-noxious nicotinoids making Dow richer/while that plant residue kills Bees (?)
It could.. perhaps.. also derange/disorient the outliers in a hive; the immediately-dead never making it out?
Have signed some petitions targeted at Consumer supplier chains (Dow, of course is impervious to anything less impressive than an Uzi.)
I know not if any Gov. $$ are being spent to pin-down many of potential causal agents--but have seen some nicotinoid early investigations as assuredly need rapid follow-ups.
Death via the intransigence of Σ Corporations will surely rate a line on that tall stone epitaph.
Meanwhile, could you just leave porch un-lighted?
Used to have neighbor who left-on some bluish (Hg++ likely) garage-mount nite-light; finally talked him into letting me put an X-10 switch on his feed (same util. power transformer: it works!)
That restored The Stars. I could then turn-back-on this stupid/mindless light source.. as was the Deal. Guess it's only a concern for those who occasionally do Look Up,
We don't need perspective any more, though; get a web-pic of the night sky; leave a Big-screen on all night--might fool the pineal gland? into imagining we still are diurnal creatures..
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Post #393,828
8/27/14 9:24:16 PM
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What puzzles me is, how come at least half are dead . . .
. . within two hours of arrival.
I have been leaving it off, but hoped the LCD bulb would do better.
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Post #394,258
9/8/14 12:15:23 PM
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The saga of the bees continues.
Trying to find out when the bees arrived, yesterday I got up as the sky just started to lighten. There was already a very active swarm of bees around the light and some were crawling on it (not seen at later hours). I turned off the light. Casualties were still significant and there were quite a few bees still there a couple hours later.
During the day I taped a deep 5" diameter transparent plastic cylinder over the light. By the pre-dawn hours it was so covered with bees I could hardly see the light (dim yellow bug light). Unfortunately, a lot of bees had found a small gap in the tape job, so the cup had a swarm of bees inside too. I turned off the light. By 9:00am most of the outside bees were gone and there were relatively few casualties. Of course, the inside bees were still there and I'm not going to dump them out until ALL the outside bees are gone.
Still a mystery as to why this is happening now, after 30 years or so. Curly fluorescents have been in use on the porch for about 5 years with no problems - now this.
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Post #394,261
9/8/14 1:51:02 PM
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Got a local college with either agriculture or biology programs?
Sounds like the kind of thing some grad students would love to study.
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Post #394,267
9/8/14 3:55:59 PM
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I've been thinking of going that route.
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Post #394,269
9/8/14 4:40:20 PM
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Kudoes..
Was sure you would follow up. It's possible you're among the few? to get this far--actually to one solution.
A grad-student who blew you off (on hearing the drill) would, I hope get culled before he could 'practice' science anywhere.
Because he's not-only disinterested in your productive experiment:
People aren't universally unobservant, fortunately; Bees attracted to porch lights got ~55K hits.
What I suppose we are waiting for: is apiarists et al to SAY SOMETHING to the masses,
possibly fund a start-up for some shields ... easy-enough to attach.. that even the Duh can/maybe will do. it.
Then.. if necessay, I say SHAME the mofos who won't even do that.
Gonna follow-up locally, after I digest some of the lore in those 55K.
Thanks for your bringing that phenom here to IGM; should it Be that a Queen Bee IS the ultimate Source-mind for the Entire Enchilada
--I think you're on the short-list for all those virgins (but: it's Paradise remember; each well-versed in various virtuosities.)
er, {cackle.. cackle.. cackle..} ;^>
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