The Indian carpenter bee (Xylocopa sp., Apidae) is known to be nocturnal, able to forage even on the darkest, moonless nights. Nocturnal species, such as the Indian carpenter bee, fly at night to find food and return resources to their colonies.
Bees can fly in the dark, and some bee species have adapted to do so. However, most bees prefer to sleep at night and fly about during the day. This is because they acquire food from open flowers, and flowers close during nighttime because the sun is no longer supplying light for photosynthesis.
While many tropical bee species can fly at night, only the Indian carpenter bee can fly in complete darkness. Instead, most bees fly and forage during the day, although some diurnal bees can fly in moonlit darkness.
Although diurnal bees do not usually fly at night, you can still see them flying under a full moon. Nocturnal bees have adapted to fly at night to feed on flowers that produce nectar day and night. Some bees have evolved to fly in the dark, collecting pollen on their feet and nectar with their straw mouths from flower species that open in the dark.
Bee Flying Patterns in Ideal Conditions
On a spring day, you can often see swarms of bees flying around the flowers collecting the pollen they need. We often see bees that are very active during the day, flying from flower to flower to pollinate, and you might wonder if bees even fly at night and can see in the dark. Physically, bees can fly at night, just like people walk and do other things at night, but they don’t like to do that because they can’t see well at night.
Bees have trouble navigating dark hives without a light source, but they can still use compound eyes to see where they are going. Bees can also distinguish between different colors and patterns through their eyes, which helps them detect small amounts of light, although seeing in the dark can be a problem for bees.
Each compound eye may also include light-sensitive structures called ommatidium, or “ommatidium,” which bees use to detect different light sources at night. Yes, bees can see in the dark with their eyes, and three unique light-collecting structures on their heads called monoculars (also known as “monocyses”). Bees and other insects with juxtaposed eyes, adapted to live at night, improve their night vision by stacking photons in space and time.
Some Bees Can See Well in the Dark
Bees’ strong night vision allows them to find their way home after a foraging trip. When they fly in the dark, bees can identify visual cues for where they are feeding and where they are nesting. Species of bees that can forage in near-darkness have evolved over time with recognizable eyes that are slightly larger than daytime bees.
Certain species of bees are known to be able to forage in near-dark conditions, and they can fly if there is some kind of light source. The aforementioned bee species can fly and navigate even without any light source, especially at night. Meanwhile, other species of bees can do this by absorbing ultraviolet light or detecting electric fields that help them navigate the dark.
Three monoculars can also help in the dark, as nocturnal bees have enlarged monoculars that can detect even the slightest changes in light. Physical adaptations such as more prominent monocularia (the ommatidia located between the compound eyes) and slightly larger compound eyes are seen in these nocturnal bees, possibly with more ommatidia than diurnal species.
Now, if we talk about other types of bees, like those that forage at night, they buzz at night because they need to fly to gather resources and bring them back to their colony. That doesn’t mean that most bees don’t fly to attack intruders or threaten their colonies, even late at night. Yes, if the bees are attacked, they will fight back around the clock to defend themselves.
Bees Remain Alert at Night
As a beekeeper, knowing that your bees can fly and will attack intruders at night will guide your behavior at night. However, as a rule, you are unlikely to be stung by bees at night unless you attack their hive. A swarm of bees swarming trees in your yard or around your house can be annoying, especially if they are nesting in your house.
It is unusual to see European bees flying at night, unless something interrupts their normal behavior (or the occasional wayward bee refuses to go to bed). Since honey bees lack the anatomical adaptations that would allow them to fly at night, they return to the hive at night. In areas with cool evening temperatures, your bees often stay in their clusters and do not fly towards you. Some flowers found in rainforests open at night, allowing nocturnal bees to search for resources when there is little competition from other pollen-gathering insects.
Bees that can fly at night have some notable differences from their relatives that fly during the day, including special eyes designed to work in darker conditions. Other types of bees fly at dusk, at night and early in the morning to avoid the scorching sun.
While these bees can’t technically see, they can use the sun’s rays (polarized light) to guide them, says Quinn S. McFrederick, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside. In a dark hive, the bees find their way to the bees in the absence of any other light source available, using all their senses and certain body parts to navigate the hive.
