The Interesting Life of Bees

Lately I have been researching bees and how much work it would going to keeping them. Yes that means I am thinking about being a beekeeper

Just for fun I started to list the parts of beekeeping that stand out to me as fun. And it kinda turned into a 690 word essay. All done in one afternoon:P

I would highly recommend getting the book Beekeeping for Dummies from the library(when I am done with it  course).

Here is the essay just in case you are interested. It is my first essay so be nice to me.

 

 

It is said that only man has a form of communication superior to that of the honey bee. Like humans, the honey bee uses five senses throughout their daily lives. Honeybees also have additional forms of communication. Two of the methods that are particular interest are

1^st. Chemical

2^nd.Choreographic

But the most famous and fascinating “language” is communicated through a series of dances. They are able to obtain remarkably accurate information about the location and type of food the foraging bees have discovered. Two common types of dances are the so-called Round Dance and the Waggle Dance. When the bee does the round dance, it is saying that the food source is relatively close (within 10-80 yards). The waggle dance involves shivering side-to-side motion of the abdomen while the dancing bee forms a figure eight. The vigor of the waggle, the number of times it is repeated, and the direction of the dance, can very accurately give information to its sisters.

Now I will tell a bit about the Queen bee, the Worker bee, and the Drones.

The Queen Bee hatches in 16 days and living up to 2 or more years. She has two primary purposes in life. One is to lay eggs, producing up to 1,500 of them a day at 30 second intervals. That many eggs are more than her body weight! She also lets out a number of different pheromones in her mandibular glands that attract workers to her and stimulate brood rearing, foraging, comb building, and other activities. These pheromones help control the behavior and attitude. As a queen ages her pheromones diminish and when that happens, the colony knows that it is time to supersede her with a new, young queen.

A worker bee is hatched in 21 days and has a lifespan of anywhere in-between 28 and 35 days. Like the queen, the worker bees are all females, therefore beekeepers call them “their girls”. Also like the queen, the worker bees have stingers which is the most known part of a bee`s anatomy. Their stingers unlike the queen`s, has a barb in the end. Only in mammals does the bee`s stinger get stuck. The bee can sting other insects again and again while defending it`s home without the suicide effect:P The worker bee does not have a main job, but they work together doing various jobs such as housekeeping, attending her royal highness, preventing disease by disposing of dead bees, and guarding the hive. Sometimes, passing bees from other hives can bribe the guard bees with nectar, just to come in and steal a bite of honey! With her life half over, she joins the ranks of field bees. You can see these bees flying around their hive imprinting the looks and location of it before they fly away. These field bees visit 5 million flowers to make one pint of honey!! They forage a two to three mile radius from the hive in search of food. That is 6,000 acres!! These bees are known for literally working and foraging for their colony till they drop.

The drone bee is hatched in 24 days and has a lifespan of up to four months. These drone bees are the only male bees in the colony. Their only purpose in life is mate with the queen bee. Not much to say on that subject other than after the drone bee mates with the queen bee it dies! Reason is the same as when a worker bee stings someone. Once the weather gets cooler and the mating season is over, the workers stop tolerating having the drones “lazing” around. After all, drones have big appetites and would eat a lot of precious food during the winter months. So at the end of the nectar producing season, you will see the worker bees literally tossing dead drone bees out of the hive!

These are but a few reasons I am intrigued with bees. Their lives are an example of hard-working diligence even to the end of their lives.

Thanks for reading this!!