How honey bees of successive age classes are distributed over a one storey, ten frames hive

SummaryIn honey bee studies focusing on physiology, disease diagnosis or bio indication, bees are sampled from the colony. This raises the question of where in the colony samples must be taken from for specific study objectives. In this study we recorded where bees of known age are found in the hive. We recorded in a single brood box with ten frames in August that the mean proportion of bees of one (41%), two (23%), three (17%), four (11%) and five (8%) week old bees did not differ between frames. Additionally we found that there was a significant mortality of young bees in the first week after emergence. This may be partly due to the study set up but is also a natural phenomenon.