All About The Honey Bee
q The Hive
q Breeding
q Foraging
q Swarming
The Hive
Inside the hive, the bees build ranks of combs - each comb being a vertical sheet of wax with rows of horizontally arranged cells on either side. The cells are hexagonal in shape. They are used for storing honey and pollen, and as breeding compartments for new bees. Most cells are about 0.5 cm in diameter and 1.2 cm in depth. The wax is secreted in tiny strips from glands on the underside of the worker bee's stomach. The bee moulds it into shape with its jaws.
The hive is maintained at a very steady temperature, not much below that of our own bodies. In hot weather, it is cooled by fanning. In cool weather, it is warmed by the activities of the bees and their brood. The digestion of sugar automatically releases heat. In addition, when the temperature drops inside the hive, the worker bees become very active. They run about on the combs. This warms them up, because they use a lot of energy, and their bodies then heat the air in the hive.
Whether wild or domesticated, the honey bee colony has the same rigid caste system, which is the key to its organisation and efficiency. There are three categories of bee: Queen, Drone and Worker.
The queen, who is about 2 cm long, is the largest of the bees. There is normally only one to each colony, and her main role is to lay eggs - up to 200,000 a year. She is fed by the workers and, once mated, never leaves the hive, except to lead a swarm. In addition to her vital reproductive function, the queen provides the main cohesive force of the colony by producing a scent known as "queen substance" which keeps the workers active and under control. Without it, they become lax and restless, and the colony loses its vitality and direction. Each queen has her own individual scent, which is the trade-mark of the hive. When the queen becomes old and exhausted, and her laying rate drops, the workers start rearing her replacement.
The queen grows from a fertilised egg. Within the first two weeks of her adult life, she is mated - often several times, and always outside the hive. This provides the queen with sufficient sperm for at least three years egg-laying. The length of a queen's life varies, but many survive for as long as four years.
The worker bee is the insect that gathers nectar to make the honey we eat. She has six legs, four wings, and two antennae. The workers are infertile females developed, like the queen bee, from fertilised eggs. The adult worker is a jack (or rather jill)-of-all-trades, carrying out most, if not all, of the following tasks: feeding larvae; building and cleaning cells; regulating the hive temperature; defending the colony; foraging for water, nectar and pollen; converting nectar into honey.
A worker bee lives for about five weeks if hatched in summer; six or more months if hatched in autumn (hibernating until the spring). A strong colony may have as many as 40,000.
Under a microscope, a stinger shows its spiky barbs. The stinger comes out of the worker’s body when she wants to defend herself. After she uses her stinger, the worker bee will die.
The Drone Bee …back to top
Drones are fertile males, produced from unfertilised eggs. Unlike the worker or queen, they have no sting, and contribute nothing to the daily running of the colony.
Their principal function is to fertilise virgin queens. They have big eyes to help them find the queen as she flies about the treetops. Only the fastest and strongest manages to catch her, and he always dies in the act of mating. This is because the male ejects sperm by generating such pressure in his abdomen that part of his reproductive system is forced out. It is left behind in the body of the queen, and he dies. Normally, drones live for about four weeks only, and towards autumn or when food is short, they are evicted by the workers and left to perish.
Breeding …back to top
The fertilised queen begins laying her eggs in early spring and carries on through to late autumn. She lays a maximum of 1500 a day: about one egg every minute. By controlling the release of the sperm stored inside her, the queen determines whether an egg is fertilised or not - and thus the sex of the bee. Eggs for drones (unfertilised and male) are laid in slightly larger cells than those for workers (fertilised and female); while those for queen bees are deposited in the largest cells of all. This means that although it is the Queen who decides which eggs are to be fertilised, the worker bees can influence her decision - according to the needs of the hive - by the size of the cells they construct.
The queen lays each egg in a clean, empty cell. After about four days, the egg hatches into a small larva, and is immediately fed by workers - or “nurse-bees” as they are called when carrying out this particular function. Food consists of honey, pollen, and a nutritious milky substance, produced by glands in the nurse-bee’s mouth.
Each egg is shaped like a grain of rice. It hatches into a worm-like larva, which grows quickly. The larval stage lasts five days. At the end of that time, the workers cap each breeding cell with a wax lid. During the next twelve days or so, the transition from larva to pupa to bee takes place in the enclosed cell.
When ready to emerge, the young adult bee bites through the cell cap and crawls out on to the comb-face. If it is a worker, the busy life starts at once. For the first three weeks of her brief existence, she will carry out in-hive activities; her last fortnight is spent as a forager.
Foraging …back to top
Workers freely exchange food and water: a bee with a surplus readily supplying other bees. The hive requirements are communicated to the foragers by means of a simple supply-and-demand mechanism. If the hive needs water for cooling, foragers bringing in water will be enthusiastically received by the home-bees; those with nectar will be made less welcome. Foragers are thus encouraged to collect water. If the demand is for nectar, the emphasis is reversed, and so on.
Before entering upon their final two weeks of foraging, workers spend a number of days on guard duty at the hive entrance. From there they will make short flights to investigate intruders and, if necessary, attack. They also take the opportunity of familiarising themselves with the local surroundings.
Bees and many flowering plants have evolved together. The plants have developed flower patterns and colours that are attractive to bees, and provide them with nectar and pollen; while the bees, in the process of collecting, perform the vital function of cross-pollination. In short, they help each other out.
Worker bees tend to go to the same flowers at exactly the same time, day after day. They have a very accurate sense of time. This is important because some flowers produce nectar mainly at a particular hour of the day.
The worker bee carries nectar in a special compartment in its stomach. On returning to the hive, the bee regurgitates the nectar, handing it over to other workers who convert it, via their own stomachs, into honey. This takes just a few hours. The honey is then stored in cells as food. Pollen is collected on the bee’s furry body and in sacs - pollen baskets - on its hind legs. Like the honey, it is kept in cells until needed. Pollen is nearly as important as nectar to bees. It is their only source of protein, and it is necessary for the development of the grubs. A little honey is added to the pollen when it is being stored for the winter. The mixture is called “bee-bread” and it keeps fresh for a long time.
Worker bees collect gum or resin from the buds of carious plants, especially trees. They use it as a kind of glue to fasten loose pieces of the comb and to fill up any cracks in the walls of the hive. Should any foreign insects or small animals get trapped inside the hive and cannot be remove from the hive, the bees cover it with this substance which has antibiotic properties and keeps the hive free from disease.
The Dance …back to top
If a worker finds a source of food, she communicates the information to her fellow bees through an elaborate “dance-language”. The pattern and rhythm of the dance accurately describe the location of the source: this enables the colony’s efforts to be concentrated on the most profitable areas. There are two types of dance: the Round Dance and the Waggle Dance. Both are performed on the comb-face, inside the hive.
The Round Dance - quick, circular movements, first in one direction, then the other - means that food is within a radium of 100 metres or so. In other words, close to the hive.
The Waggle Dance - a figure of eight with a long, straight line separating the two loops - indicates that the source is further afield. The sun’s position is used as a “marker” in pointing out the direction. The angle between the vertical on the comb-face and the straight line of the dance is the same as that between the sun and the food source, as seen from the hive entrance. If, for example, the two coincide, it means that the food is towards the sun.
The bee waggles its body when travelling along the straight line - hence the name of the dance. The distance from hive to food source is shown by the number of complete figure-eights traced per minute. As with the Round Dance, the type of flower is indicated by the scent carried on the returning bee’s body. In performing the dance, the bee makes allowances for cross wind, head and tail winds, etc. The margin of error is less than five percent.
Swarming …back to top
If a colony becomes over-crowded and all the cells full, the workers are forced into idleness. The colony reacts by swarming. Two weeks before a swarm leaves, workers prepare a number of queen cells, in each of which the resident queen lays a fertilised egg. Out of one of these will come her successor, some fifteen days later.
The old queen leaves the colony accompanied by most of the foraging workers, who, before departing, take in as much honey as their honey-stomachs will hold. The swarm settles in a nearby tree, while Scout bees search for a suitable new home. The dance-language is used as a means of “comparing notes”. The swarm may have to last for several days, even weeks, living off their reserves, before the scouts agree on somewhere.
Meanwhile, in the parent hive, the virgin Queens are about to emerge. Once of two things now happens: either the first one out destroys all the other queen cells and their occupants; or the young queens fight it out to the death - leaving just one survivor. She is mated within two weeks, and becomes the new queen of the colony.
A colony of honeybees can have as many as 60,000 individuals, most of them workers. In a good year they can produce up to 300 kilos of honey, depending on the location of the hive. The bees themselves eat half of this during the summer when the hive is active; the rest is stored for the winter hibernation. In the case of domestic hives, most the latter is harvested by the beekeeper for human consumption. If necessary, the bees will be fed sugar syrup (sugar and water) so that they can survive throughout the winter.