wierd day on little trout lake wi

me and a friend were out fishing on this lake last week during my vacation. the day started off with a slight breeze, but then it became dead calm. the fish werent really biting either. so anyways, i started noticing bugs on the surface and commented that the bug hatch was probably why the fish werent biting. as some of the bugs that were "hatching" floated by i noticed that they were all bees!!! There were hundreds of them all over the lake. Could it be that they were flying into the lake because of the reflections from it being dead calm? the lake was like glass....anyone ever seen something like this?

My guess would be that a local hive swarmed. A new queen emerged from the hive and left. Taking about half of the hive with her. She then promptly tried to land in the water and drowned. The rest of the swarm buzzed around trying to save her till they were all caught in a watery death.
I would bet the fishing will suck for days

Taeas - this sounds logical. But I have to say, that would freak me out a bit. When I read the original post my first thought was "suicidal bees? What on earth were they scared of?" I know - that was silly - you are probably correct here - at least I hope you are. That reminds me - remember the article about the 27,000 pelicans vanishing? Anyone hear any more on that - where did they go and why?

could be, but i did not see a swarm anywhere on the lake or a concentration of bees in any one spot. it was more or less spread out all over. you could see individual bees from time to time fly into the water and start buzzing around the surface.

Originally posted by badkitty
That reminds me - remember the article about the 27,000 pelicans vanishing? Anyone hear any more on that - where did they go and why?

I heard that they found few tagged birds in nearby states. But to my knowledge no one has come up with a reason for why they left in such a hurry.

If bees saw things the same way that we did I would have to assume that you are right about the still water. But, because bees use a compound eye that is made up of thousands of little units that work together to form thier five eyes, everything they see is equivelent to our slow motion. Bees can see a flower sway in gentle wind. Bees can see uv-a, and uv-b light which is invisible to us, and they also have a tracking system that alows them to always know the suns position. I would say there might have been an influx of uv rays that were magnified by the water and could have somehow confused thier sense of direction. The other option would be that because bees see red as black, if there was some reason why the water was tinted red, they might not have seen it at all. Have any red dust on your cars or front porches?

no red dust. the sky was blue with some patchy white clouds. green trees all around the lake.