Honeybees
“Bee health is at risk and, frankly, if nothing is done about it, the fact is the honeybee population could be wiped out in 10 years”
Lord Rooker, Environment & Rural Affairs Minister, UK 2008
Honeybees (or honey bees) are amazing. They are the Angelina Jolie of bees: sexy, edgy, complex and happy to look after another’s brood. Here is my blaggers guide:
The Big Picture
- Honeybees are a subset of bees in the genus Apis
- There are 7 species of honeybee (out of approximately 20,000 species of bees)
- The popular honeybees in the UK are Carniolan honeybee, Italian honeybee, Buckfast honeybee and British dark honeybee
- The general advice is to buy local honeybees. If you have a choice and live in England, my preference is the Carniolans (purely based on what I have read)
Who’s In The Hive
- Three castes of honeybees: Queen, Workers, Drones
- Queen – a fully fertile female which produces eggs, she will live up to 5 years
- Workers – infertile females that do all the work of the colony, they live for 6 weeks in Summer and 5 months over Winter
- Drones – male bees. Their function is to fertilise a queen. They are kicked out of the hive at the end of Summer by the workers as they have no use during Winter
- A hive can contain up to 60,000 bees of which there is 1 queen, 0-500 drones and the rest are workers
What’s Going On In The Hive
- The queen lays her eggs in hexagonal beeswax cells built by the workers
- Developing young honey bees (called “brood”) go through four stages: the egg, the larva, the inactive pupa and the young adult. The castes have different development times, up to 24 days
- Newly emerged workers start working immediately. As they age, they undertake the following tasks in this order: clean cells, circulate air with their wings, feed larvae, practice flying, receive pollen and nectar from foragers, guard hive entrance and forage
- Honeybees produce honey, beeswax and propolis
The Baddies
- Honeybees are under attack from the varroa mite and from man destroying their habitat
- Sterile lawns and gardens containing sterile plants with little pollen and nectar
- It is said that the human race would die out 5 years after the bee becomes extinct (I am not sure how true this is)
Read More
- Honey Facts – If you want to know the answers to questions like how many miles do bees fly to create a jar of honey?
- Honeybee Photos – photos of these delightful creatures
- Laying Workers and Dwarf Drones – more about these types of honeybees
- The Buzz about Bees: Biology of a Superorganism – Superb hardback, on the expensive side but contains over 250 excellent photos and the following review is typical “As a basic work, ‘The Buzz about Bees’ is not only a milestone in bee literature for beekeepers, but recommended for anyone interested in nature.“
A Call For Action – “Flower Power”
If you are concerned about the baddies and want to help visit “bee friendly plants” and do your bit.
Finally – A Plea For Bees
If you want to learn more about the plight of honeybees please watch the following video:
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Hello – I’m just trying to find out where I can get a picture of a bee identified? I have a huge amount of bees who seem to like my pond and they spend all day settling on stones mainly – they don’t go from flower to flower. Of course they may not be bees but they don’t look like wasps either. I don’t think they’ve made a nest among the dense pond plants as they seem to fly busily backwards and forwards from the direction of nearby allotments – I live in North London. With all the current interest in bees I’m quite keen to identify them as they’ve ‘adopted’ my pond, (which has never happened before).Can I send you a photo to get your opinion please?
Thanks
Peter Coleman
Hi Peter, you could google “identifying bumblebees” or you could try this link: British Bumblebee Identification Guide.
Let us know what it is!
This image above (on your page not in comment) of the Carniolan bee and blue flower is of a Hoverfly not a bee. Just thought you should know.
Thanks Bill. A common mistake I read about in the bee press just a few weeks ago! I have updated it.