What a Bee Bathroom Break Can Teach Us About Survival

As the sun breaks through the clouds on the first truly warm day after a long winter, something spectacular happens in the hive. Bees rapidly exit the hive like black and yellow bullets, darting out and back again. This behavior marks the beginning of the bees’ cleansing flights. The cleansing flight, aka a much-awaited bathroom break, is a vital part of colony survival.

For weeks, and sometimes even months, these bees refrain from defecating during the long, cold winter. So you might be asking yourself, why hold it in? If bees were to take one of these flights during the winter, they would risk becoming disoriented and dying from the cold. Instead, during the winter, these buzzing creatures cluster tightly for warmth, rarely leaving the hive. As they continue to maintain the hive heat, their bodies accumulate waste.

All About Cleansing Flights

Waste removal is good not only for the hygiene of the hive but also for disease prevention. You can think of a cleansing flight as a short but critical journey taken by bees to remove waste from their bodies. As Dr. Julia Bowsher, a pollinator expert and professor at North Dakota State University, puts it:

“Cleansing flights are mostly a honeybee behavior. Honeybees really do not want to defecate in their nests, and some individuals, especially nurse bees, spend all day in the nest, only leaving for these flights.”

Most bees, if they can help it, usually do not defecate in the hive because it can be deleterious to the hive’s health. If there is too much waste in the hive, the potential for diseases and contamination of the honey and wax increases. So to avoid these dangers, bees wait. As the outside temperatures climb, bees seize the opportunity to launch out and relieve themselves. These flights are mostly observed after long periods of confinement, like during the winter. When performing a cleansing flight, bees usually wait until the temperature climbs above a certain threshold. Usually, when the weather starts climbing above 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit, bees dash.

Cleansing flights not only provide a much-needed bathroom break but also give bees a chance to stretch and warm up their flight muscles. This provides the bees with some movement after a long period of mostly inactivity. It’s similar to a long-awaited stretch after sitting still for months. Meanwhile, other workers begin housekeeping tasks, such as removing debris and dead bees that have accumulated in the hive over the winter.

For young bees, this time allows them to orient themselves and learn the layout of the hive and surrounding landmarks. This memorization helps them to navigate in and out of the hive efficiently. Young bees, or “newbies,” circle the entrance in widening loops to create a mental map of their surroundings, helping them remember the path home.

Here are a few telltale signs of a cleansing flight:

• Sudden bursts of activity: Rapid buzzing bees are seen exiting and returning to the hive within a short time frame
• Odd flight paths: instead of flying straight to forage for flowers, bees zig-zag, hover, or loop around as they expel excrement
• Yellow or brown droppings: Small dots might appear on the snow or by hive boxes

Curious to see what a cleansing flight looks like? Check out this clip.

Tiny Flights: Big Purpose

Honeybees have a specialized organ called the crop, or ‘honey stomach,’ which carries nectar for transport but does not digest it. For honeybees, the true digestion begins in their midgut. Eventually, the bee’s waste is stored in the rectum, which can hold excrement for a long time. This is especially useful during the cold winter months.

Dr. Bowsher explains that honeybees need to leave the hive to poop. It is a special trait that is useful, especially since they reuse the same nest. So they must keep it clean. Because honeybees reuse the same nest for long periods, maintaining hygiene is a community concern. By contrast, many solitary bees, such as leafcutter bees (Megachilidae), do not have the same need. “Solitary bees are not raising multiple families in the hive,” Bowsher adds. “They do not have the same level of sociality, and since they spend most of their time outside, their defecation habits are not looked at as often”.

Since flying outside in the winter can be harmful for the bees, they mostly stay huddled inside the hive, vibrating their bodies to keep the group warm. With longer winters, however, the waste can build up and make the bees sick.

Solitary Bees vs. Honeybees

While honeybees typically overwinter as a colony, adult solitary bees die off. The next generation of solitary bees usually overwinters as larvae. It is not until around spring that the larvae turn into adults after undergoing metamorphosis. Interestingly, honeybees do not go into a hibernation-like state; instead, they remain active inside the hive all winter, making cleansing flights a necessity.

“Cleansing flights are characteristically a winter phenomenon,” Bowsher explains. “Honeybees try to wait it out until the weather is not as bad, just long enough to fly out, poop, and return.”

As larvae, all bees defecate—even solitary ones. However, solitary bee larvae defecate inside their cells. “And before any bee undergoes metamorphosis, they purge their gut to get rid of waste. A lot of their gut is rebuilt during the change,” Dr. Bowsher adds.

Cleansing Flights vs. Nosema

Cleansing flights play a critical role in disease prevention within the hive. One important infection to note is from Nosema, a microsporidian gut parasite that thrives in unhygienic conditions. These parasites invade the bees’ gut lining and weaken their immune systems. The most insidious aspect of this infection is that these pathogens often already exist in the bees’ guts. When there is a lot of waste buildup, these pathogens can multiply rapidly.

A 2021 study found that prolonged confinement during the winter directly correlates with the increased Nosema spore loads in the gut. Without the regular expulsion of waste, these spores can linger in the digestive tract and potentially contaminate the hive. Warning signs of this infection can include brown streaks inside the hive, which may indicate the bees are struggling with dysentery. If the infection becomes advanced, the entire colony can collapse. For these reasons, cleansing flights act as a natural disease management strategy. By defecating outside the hive, bees greatly reduce the risk of infecting one another.

Lessons From the Bee Bathroom Break

Though it may seem a bit chaotic at first glance, a bunch of bees darting out of the hive to take a dump carries a massive ecological weight (literally). Cleansing flights are exactly that—a way for honeybees to maintain hygiene in the hive, suppress disease, and preserve energy during the cold months.

“Honeybees have more of a division of labor than other bees,” Bowsher says. “Not every bee leaves the hive daily. Some workers, like nurse bees, stay inside most of their lives, making cleansing flights even more essential for them.”

With this evolutionary wisdom, bees demonstrate the value of a clean home. So the next time winter ends and the air buzzes with bee activity, take a moment to appreciate what you are really seeing. You are witnessing a species doing its best to stay clean and carry on, one flight at a time.