Of the hundreds of species of pollinators, from tiny sweat bees to large fruit bats, the honeybee is the only pollinator to turn nectar and pollen into honey. Humans crave something sweet. Domestication guaranteed a source. There are seven species of honeybee. Only two have been domesticated: the Asian honeybee (Apis cerana) and the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera).
Modern beekeeping is rooted in Europe. Abbeys and monasteries created a more peaceful means of harvesting honey than by destroying nests. Due to European exploration and colonization, the Western honeybee has been taken around the world, making it the dominant species in population numbers and range.
Beekeepers use stackable boxes and frames meticulously crafted to suit the bee’s natural proclivity for comb-building in cavities. This has made the fascinating life of the honeybee observable in all its stages. Their society revolves around a strict reproduction system called eusociality. A queen’s job is to mate with drones (their sole job) and lay eggs. The rest of the all-female workers have various roles they graduate to throughout their lives. From the time an egg is laid, it takes 21 days for a new worker to emerge. Juveniles at two days old clean and warm brood cells, then at five days they become young nurse bees and feed the older larva in the brood cells. Older nurse bees (11 days) feed the youngest larva. When they reach 17 days, they become house bees doing hive maintenance: wax production, building comb and removing dead bees. Becoming guard bees at 21 days, they familiarize themselves with the outdoors by preventing predators or robber bees from gaining entrance at the opening of the hive. From 35-45 days old, they graduate to foragers, the first time they take flight out into the field. They can visit 2000 flowers a day, the foragers cumulatively flying up to 40,000 miles to make 1 lb. of honey. Wow!
Hives can contain 80,000-100,000 bees depending on how much room the boxes provide and number of nectar sources there are in a five-mile radius. If space or food is insufficient, the hive may create a new queen, split the workers and swarm away with her to mate. Drones hovering near the hive entrance have been kicked out as expendable. This indicates potential swarming to the beekeeper. Alternatively, the entire hive may abscond with the old queen to seek better options. The swarm bees fill up with honey so they can afford to build a new hive somewhere else. That’s why they are not aggressive and stay close to the queen. Their future depends on her.
In places with cold winters, beekeepers reduce the number of hive boxes to keep the bees warmer (they prefer 100 degrees inside) as they huddle in a ball close to their reserves of food, which a beekeeper will supplement if necessary. On sunny days above 50 degrees, the foragers will venture out to seek nectar or pollen. Nature provides much earlier than our gardens do. Maple trees bloom earliest in the year, starting as early as February. By April, native flowers are sending out pheromones and getting the bees in a frenzy of action. Stay out of the “beeline” in and out of the hive, as the trajectory out is fast and furious and they may sting if they crash into you, while the overloaded bees coming back with either nectar in their tummies or pollen on their legs will hover and wait, slightly agitated, until you get out of the way. Bees aren’t out to get you, so just be aware and move aside. If the honeybees thrive, we thrive.
Go to Ozarksbeekeepers.org for more info.
