Do Bees Sleep?

Our best guess is........yes, bees do sleep.

Overall, bees spend about 17% of their time sleeping for durations of 21 minutes or so with no regard to whether it is daytime or nighttime. The bee’s sleep is dictated by the different periods of the bee’s life. Younger bees prefer their “bee bed” to be inside the comb while older bees sleep outside the comb.

Bees have been found face down inside an empty comb exhibiting discontinuous ventilating at periods of 10 seconds or greater (irregular breathing). You might expect the bee’s antennae to stop moving during this time too, but that can be misleading.

Other behaviors, including heater bees, will stop moving their antennae during periods of work.

Check out the pictures documenting the sleeping bees in this image and if you want to learn more, check out this research article here.

What do you think bees dream about???

Thanks for supporting local beekeeping,

Trevor Bawden

Lloyd St. Bees

lloydstbees.com