The Bee’s Knees

By Ms Sherry

Published: October 2, 2008

Look closely and you can see a honeybee diligently doing its job. 

Each month our county Master Gardener program sponsors a noon time program with topics ranging from butterflies to recreational fishing ponds. Recently a local beekeeper spoke to us about his love affair with the world of bees. After listening to him talk (and sampling five different kinds of honey) I agreed with him that bees are absolutely amazing creatures. They live in a well-ordered world where everyone has a job. I am going to share some of the answers to the many questions we asked so that you too can get a peak into the life of a bee. By the way, our speaker has been keeping bees for more than twenty years. He has over 200 hives and, for excitement, he will come to your home and remove an unwanted swarm of bees who may have taken up residence in or about your property. Sometimes it is easy as cutting a limb off a tree and shaking the bees into a box (a hive). Other times, if the bees have made a home in parts of your house, he actually has to dismantle that part of your house (and put it back together).

Bees can be subject to mites so it is the keeper’s responsibilities to keep their environment clean and treat them with medicines to keep them healthy.
Yes, bees in fact do like some flowers more than others. One favorite is the flowers on blueberry bushes.

Our honeybees are similar to the killer bees and yet very different. Actually it is hard to tell them apart physically. Killer bees are smaller than our honeybees, but they are so dangerous because they are very aggressive and especially defensive of their home. So far, however, there are no killer bees in Alabama but they have been found in Florida. Honey bees will chase you a 100 yards whereas killer bees might chase you 10,000 yards. Our speaker told us the literature he has read says if you get chased to run. Do not swat at the bees as your movement will attract them.

The reason why bees may be disappearing is still somewhat of a mystery. There are multiple causes; possibly one reason is colony collapse disorder which is happening on migration routes. The bees are getting stressed and mixed in with other bees exposing them to illness. Of course pesticides can be a big cause–this is a build up, not an instant death. It is hard to find bees to study once they have died, because they often just disappear.

We do not have a native honeybee; they have been brought in by the Europeans.

There are lots of bees besides the honey bees. As a matter of fact there are 20,000 species of bees in the world.

Honey bees are very important to our food chain as they pollinate one/third of what we eat.  Bumble bees actually also do some pollinating (in addition to the honey bees).

There are beekeepers whose primary job is to raise queen bees. But bees themselves are very adept at raising their own queens. The queen bee takes care of the hives. She mates only one time but she can lay a half million eggs during her lifetime. After two to four years the queen bee leaves the hive and will be replaced with another queen bee. If the bees do not like a particular queen, they can also get rid of her. Queens are raised from worker eggs but nurse bees feed that particular egg royal jelly to make that bee into a queen. Royal jelly is a secretion (a white substance) that comes from the bee forehead. There is a chemical in the royal jelly that makes the queen very different from the other bees in growth. If something happens (bad weather, etc.), and she does not mate on the trip out of the hive she will never be able to mate—which will doom her hive. She will start laying eggs a few days later and she will lay mostly fertilized eggs which will make female worker bees; unfertilized eggs will become male drones. The only thing males drones do is mate with the queen. Bees can go through many stages in their lives; they can be nurse bees, guard bees, or housekeeper bees.

Bees normally travel, at the very most, 4 miles from their hive to seek out nectar; however they prefer to travel only about 2 miles and their bee hive is commonly within a mile of their journey. They return home after they gather pollen and nectar, making their trips multiple times during a day. A bee can travel 55,000 miles in its life time. How far they travel ultimately will depend on the distance between the hive and their nectar source. A bee that hatches in the summer may live only three to six weeks as it just works itself to death. A bee hatched in the fall will live until spring. In its lifetime a bee can make only one teaspoon of honey. Although bees may rest at night, they are always active.

A swarm of bees is a scary thing to behold. However our speaker told us that bees can be very docile; however, if they are hungry, that situation can change and they can get mean. The swarm is looking for shelter. A swarm can be a problem if it decides to move into parts of your house that are accessible. At that point the homeowner may need the skills of a professional beekeeper for removal. The level of protective clothing that the beekeeper dons will often depend on the mood of the bees.

Since our speaker has so many hives, he uses a centrifuge to spin the honey out of the combs. This seems to be the only job in beekeeping that is done with a machine–keeping bees is not easy work and involves a lot of manual labor. This fact does not seem to dissuade many folks from keeping bees as either a hobby or a business or both.

During our program we all gained a lot of appreciation for this small winged creature sipping at the flowers and trees in our gardens. No more will I take the bees buzzing in my garden for granted, but I will be grateful for their role in the cycle of life.