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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