Marietta Daisies Garden Club

Do Bees Sleep?

Yes in fact some species of native bumblebees the males leave the nest in summer and don’t go back. The females keep bringing pollen in, but the males just hang out drinking nectar and looking to mate, and sleeping on the flowers overnight.

Every year we have bumblebees sleep over in our garden, especially when the evenings begin to cool down a bit.

“…scientists measured their distance and speed of flight. They found that the bumblebees’ performance increased steadily as the temperature rose from 54 degrees, and they flew best at 77 to 81 degrees. After that, their speed and distance started to decline.”

Your sleepover guests probably waited to long to go back home and it got too cold out for them so they decided to just hunker down in your yard. It always makes me laugh because they’re basically napping on their food, like if we were to just wake up on a stack of pancakes.

I also don’t know if there’s any evidence to this but I also think they’re just trying to really get as much pollen and nectar as they can before it gets cold so they’re more willing to stay longer hours and can get stuck sometimes. Or they’re just trying to be more efficient and reduce their traveling time.

Yeah they do, generally it is the males that just wander out of the hive and are lazy but sometimes when the females have worked hard they can nap on flowers. They deserve it thought I think, they get 0 days holiday, have to work all day and extra hard the day before it rains. They deserve a little nap.

After a busy summer season many of us find sweet relief in the fall. The chilly air and the early evenings invite us all to slow down. Have you noticed the bumble bees slowing down as well?

In dawn and dusk the last couple of weeks, you might have observed bumble bees sleeping on your flowers. These are often males (drones) which are produced by the queen from late summer to fall. They emerge from the nest a few days after hatching, and never return. They are not welcome back in.

These males spend their short lives feeding on nectar to fuel their life's purpose: to mate a reproductive female.

Your slumbering bee could also be a reproductive female that stayed out too late and got caught in the cold. When it warms up she'll get back to her job: putting on a lot of fat for winter hibernation.

These late-season fertile females are next year's queens!