The cleaning flight ensures that the beehive remains clean and disease-free. It also gives the honeybees some relief.
Finally spring! The temperatures are rising slowly and the first warm days are here. In addition to starting work in the garden, you can finally hang your laundry outside again. But what is it? The freshly washed clothes that have just been hung up are suddenly full of small, brown spots. There is a simple explanation for this phenomenon: the cleaning flight of the bees - more precisely: the honeybees.
What is the bees' cleaning flight?
If the temperatures climb slowly from February onwards, you can see the first bees outside again. Your cleaning flight also takes place during this time. To put it a little less nicely, one could simply say “go to the toilet” about the bees' cleaning flight at the end of winter. Honey bees spend the winter together in their hive, where they do not defecate - unless it cannot be avoided due to an illness. All bees do the cleaning flight more or less at the same time as soon as the temperatures allow flying again. If you have hung your laundry near a beehive at exactly this time, it can quickly be used as a toilet by the entire colony.
Note: The cleaning flight can quickly become dangerous for honey bees. For example, cold winds make it difficult to fly home. If white snow looks like the sky, the bees can fall in there. Temperatures that are too low can quickly lead to the death of the small beneficial insects.
What is the bee cleaning flight for?
What is so nicely described as the cleansing flight of the bees stands for a natural need of the small farm animals. Honey bees stay in their beehive all winter as they would freeze to death pretty quickly outside. However, they do not excrement there, as this would, for example, promote the transmission of diseases. Every single bee collects its feces over the months in a fecal bladder, which can make up up to 80% of the abdomen. In spring honey bees feel the urgent need to relieve themselves, which is implemented in the cleaning flight.
Tip: The bees' cleaning flight can also trigger one or two neighborhood disputes between the beekeeper and local residents. Basically, however, colonies of bees must be tolerated as long as they are kept according to local standards. This is the case, for example, if the bees can find sufficient food in the area.
Bees are extremely important to our ecosystem. There are several ways in which each individual can do something to help bees and other insects. These include reducing the amount of lawn mowing or planting bee-friendly herbs, Flowers, trees and shrubs. With our Plantura bee pasture, which was developed together with beekeepers, you will receive, for example, a flower mix of over 20 proven species. They cover a long flowering period from May to September and delight bees with their magnificence.
