Guard Bees
Verhalten der Bienen
At around the 18th to 21st day of life, in the transition from house bee to forager, workers take over guard duty.
At around the 18th to 21st day of life, in the transition from house bee to forager, workers take over guard duty. They stand in front of and just inside the entrance and examine every arriving bee with their antennae. What is checked is the hive odor. The scent of the Nasonov gland alone is not colony-specific; only when mixed with the colony's own odor does it become an identification.
If defense is not enough, the guards release an alarm pheromone. It is a mixture of dozens of scent compounds, released mainly at the base of the sting when a bee stings. This marks the attacker at the same time. The sting is barbed and stays lodged in the skin of vertebrates, and the entire sting apparatus is torn out of the abdomen.
What matters for the apiary: in periods without a nectar flow, the guards become stricter and no longer let any foreign bee through. Conspicuously heavy traffic at a weak colony is therefore not a good sign but a suspicion of robbing. The entrance must always match the colony's strength.