Learning About Honey Bees And What Is Inside A Beehive.
Your first step is to
learn all about honey bees. You need to learn
about the three kinds of honey bees that you
will find living inside a beehive - the Queen,
the Worker and the Drone.
Honey bees are highly specialized and a
functioning hive needs each of the hive
members to perform their job well, or the hive
will not survive and prosper. They must work
as a team and be willing to sacrifice
themselves if need be to keep the hive alive
and thriving.
The
Drone is the male
bee and he has
a very large
and thick
body. He has a
heavier sound
when he flies
by. I compare
the sound to a
big old World
War II Bomber
Aircraft. He
performs no
functions
inside the
hive. He
simply flies
in to rest and
feed. His sole
duty is to fly
around up
about a
thousand feet
looking for a
Virgin Queen
Bee on her
maiden flight.
His odds of
finding one
are pretty
slim. If he is
fortunate to
meet and mate
in flight, the
Virgin Queen
rips out his
sexual
apparatus (
stores it
inside her
body for
future use )
and he falls
to the ground
and dies.
Video
of a Drone mating with a
Queen Bee on a front
porch in Vermont
Should
the Drone not find a Virgin Queen
during the mating season he will meet
a cruel fate when the weather turns
cold in the early fall of the year.
Since he performs no useful function
inside the hive the Drone will be
forced/dragged out of the hive by the
Worker Bees to freeze or starve to
death.
The
Queen is
often referred to as the
mother of the hive and
people often think of her as
the boss. Neither perception
is really correct ! As you
can see from the above
drawing, she has a long body
and is very distinctive in
appearance when you see her
inside the beehive. her sole
job is to lay eggs inside
the cells. That is all she
does. She does not 'mother'
anybody. In fact, she
doesn't even feed herself.
Certain young Worker Bees
surround her in a circle
wherever she goes inside the
beehive and attend to her
every need, i.e., feed her
and get rid of her waste.
Photo
of a cell with the side cut away
showing how the egg looks inside
a cell when first deposited in
there by the Queen.
Before
she will lay an egg, the Queen
looks down inside the cell to
make sure it has been 'properly
cleaned' out by the Workers.
Once satisfied the cell is clean
enough she lowers her rear into
the top of the cell and lays a
solitary egg.ong>
The
Queen can lay about 1000 eggs per day
during the height of her egg laying
season. She begins laying eggs usually
sometime in January, dependent on the
climate where the hive is located. She
needs to build up the work force to be
ready for when plants begin to
blossom. She will stop laying eggs
about late fall.ng>
While
Worker Bees are capable of laying an
egg to become a Drone in an emergency
they are incapable of laying eggs to
become a Queen or Worker.ng>
In
the event the Queen is lost or dies
this event causes a real emergency
situation inside the hive as it cannot
survive without a Queen. Should there
already be one or more Queen cells
with an egg inside then that hive can
survive. A Queen cell is easily
identifiable as it protrudes out from
the frame and looks like a big peanut
shell was cemented in place.
Photo
of a Virgin Queen Bee having
cut away at the top of her
cell and in the process of
emerging.
When she
first emerges from this cell she
will hurry about looking for
other rival Queens that are
still inside their cells. When
she finds one she will plunge
her barb less stinger into the
side of the cell to kill its
occupant. More will be mentioned
about her possible role in the
section about swarming.
Click here to download "Raising your own
Queen Bees" [Adobe pdf format]
courtesy of the Plymouth County
Beekeeping Association in
Massachusetts.
The
Worker is actually a sterile female,
capable only of laying a cell to become a
Drone as mentioned above. Aside from laying
eggs and mating duties, all the other work
inside and outside a bee hive is performed
by these Worker Bees. When the new Worker
first emerges from her cell she may become
will engaged in one of the myriad of duties
to be performed inside the hive before she
matures to the stage where she flies out of
the hive to gather nectar and pollen.
Some of
these inside duties performed involve,
cleaning out old material from inside the
cells, attendants to the Queen Bee, carrying
dead bees or larvae outside the hive, guard
duty at the entrance to the hive, fanning at
the entrance to the hive during the hot
weather to keep the inside temperature down
and to circulate fresh air throughout the
hive, receiving nectar and pollen from the
outside Worker Bees and storing it away in
cells, nurse bees for feeding the newly laid
egg and when it turns into a larvae, sealing
the cell at the appropriate moment, to allow
the pupae to develop inside into a mature
bee, etc., etc. You can see that her work is
never done.
After
performing these inside chores for about
three weeks she will then fly out of the
hive to gather and bring nectar and pollen
back until she dies.
In fact,
during the season when flowers are blooming,
she literally works herself to death within
about six weeks. Those Workers fortunate to
be born in late summer, early fall, may well
live through the oncoming winter into the
beginning of the following spring.
Learning About Honey Bees And What Is Inside A Beehive.
