Not only do honey bees fascinate me, they are good for our
gardens and it is a real blessing to
have a personal stash of sweetener on hand.
While I’ve used honey in baking for years, studies show that using honey
from your own locale has additional health benefits. So… I’m gonna try my hand at beekeeping this
year! Before I start, however there is
so much to learn and it always helps to cement things in my head if I can share
what I’m learning! So… let’s talk honey
bees!
There are three castes to a honey bee hive: the queen, the
drones and the workers.
- There
is only one queen per hive. Her job
is to sustain the next generation of honey bees and she does so by
producing 1,000 – 3,000 eggs per day!
She has a stinger, but without a barb. While she may use her stinger to ward
off other queens, she rarely stings the beekeeper.
- The
drones are the males. Having no
stinger, they cannot sting you or your livestock. Their only job is to go from hive to
hive mating with virgin queens.
Once a virgin queen has mated with several drones during her mating
flight, she will lay eggs the rest of her life without having to mate
again! While this may seem convenient
for the queen, the poor drone is no longer needed. Consequently, the worker bees ban drones
from the hive in the fall leaving them to die in the cold elements. I suppose the drones might consider this
a blessing since there are only 300 - 3,000 fellas per hive. The rest are all female! J
- One
hive consists of 60,000-80,000 worker bees in the summer. Worker bees are always female, but do
not lay eggs unless the hive becomes queenless. Even then, the worker bee produces
unfertilized eggs. While she tries,
she isn’t able to keep the hive alive without a queen. The worker bee is born without
wings. After proving herself worthy
by being a faithful worker in the hive for 21 days, she is granted
wings. She is often seen out and
about foraging for pollen, water, nectar and propolis, a substance from trees
used to mend holes in the hive. The
little worker bee is so devoted to the queen that she will work herself to
death in 35-45 days. The worker bee
has a barbed stinger and is given only one chance to use it. If it is any condolence to the receiver of
her wrath, she dies after she stings.
I wonder if she knows that she better give it her best shot?
So what happens if the only queen dies? How do honey bees keep populating? The worker bees choose another queen from
their clan. They feed the honored one
royal jelly which is made of pre-chewed pollen that is mixed with a chemical
secreted from a gland in the nursing bee's head. While this nutritional mixture is fed to all
the larvae for the first two days of their lives, the “chosen one” continues to
eat only royal jelly for the rest of
her life. This “super food” causes her to
grow one and a half times larger and is what makes it possible for her to lay so many eggs. As a result of her royal diet, “The First
Lady” lives forty times longer than those on a less fortified diet.
How much honey does a hive produce per year?
That’s a difficult question to find a definite answer for.
From what I’ve read, we can expect from 50-250 pounds of
honey per year!
Now, that’s what I’m talking about!
While the honeybee hive is perennial, it is quite inactive
during the winter. In fact, we had a
beekeeper who kept his hives on our property in Iowa through the warm weather.
In the late fall, he would take the hives to California so that the bees could continue to produce honey. If hives are left in the cold climate, the
honeybees survive by clustering for warmth inside the hive. Regardless of the outside temperature, it
remains 93 degrees in the center of the winter cluster. Before the winter chill hits, the worker bees
have collected enough honey and water for the hive to survive the winter. Wiser than most people, I’d say!
Fun facts, huh? I
hope that, like me, as I learned these facts, you found yourself saying, “Well, I’ll Bee…!” J
I’ll keep you posted as I learn more.
Whole-Heartedly,
Bonnie
P.S. Please
feel free to contact me with questions, thoughts, topics you’d like to ponder
or to read past articles at: http://whole-heartedlife.blogspot.com/. You may also contact me at:
Bonnie
Jaeckle
In Search
of the Whole-Hearted Life
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