Yesterday I was out on a concrete pad we have, washing a boat. It was a warm sunny day, and the location is about 100 ft from either of my hives. I saw 3-4 drones just walking across the concrete. Why would they be doing this? I moved them into the cooler garden adjacent. I also saw one worker bee walking, and she had almost no wings at all. Not deformed "K" wings, just nothing there except the main rib. Do wings wear down this much naturally? Or perhaps she had a close call with a predator?
I have seen wings very frayed but never gone. Of course there is nothing that says the bee in question did or didn't have some episode with some predator like a bird. most times when I see walking bees I suspect t mites.
