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Beekeeping - Ten things you probably didn't know.

By Chris Haycock

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Published: 10Mar2009
Word count: 554
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Bees can actually get to "know" their owner, and recognise him/her. Especially if kept in proximity to people and not kept in isolation miles away from civilization.

The Queen of a colony will mate only once in her lifetime of maybe several years, and lay around 3000 eggs a day every season until she dies. The drone which fertilised the Queen, himself fatherless, the product of an unimpregnated egg, becomes the father of thousands upon thousands of worker bees, and many fully developed Queens. After his one mating he dies.

The Queen can choose to impregnate an egg or not at will. An impregnated egg can be hatched by the workers, also at will, as either an undeveloped female like themselves, or a fully developed Queen to carry on the species.

Bees can in effect "speak" to each other, by means of their antennae, or feelers. The antennae, by their motions, form a language, in which wants, needs, and desires can be communicated.

Although it is commonly believed that a bee will die once it has stung, due to the barbs on it. In fact, if left undisturbed, the bee can work it's sting out without causing itself injury. Of course, the pain caused by the sting usually results in the bee being attacked by it's victim, not giving it enough time to withdraw undamaged.

A prolific Queen will, during her lifetime, lay one and a half million eggs. If these were to be laid end to end, the resulting line would stretch for one and threequarter miles. A good Queen is able to lay on average two eggs a minute for weeks on end. The lowest estimate would mean she lays twice her own weight daily.

Propolis is a sticky, resinous substance gathered by bees from pine, horse-chestnut, and other trees, as they carry pollen on their hind legs. Propolis is used by the bees for filling up cracks, excluding draughts, and making the hive watertight.

Whilst bees are not normally aggresive, if they consider themselves and the colony to be in danger they can, and will, attack with fury. They have even been used as weapons, and there are cases on record of whole regiments being put to flight by having hives hurled at them. Riots have also been subdued by the use of bees in this manner.

The egg from which a Queen is to be reared, like the egg which is to produce a worker, hatches in three days. For six days more it continues in it's larval state. It then spins it's cocoon, is transformed into a nymph, and on the sixteenth day from the laying of the egg, it emerges as a perfect virgin Queen. The vacant cell is never used again, and is usually cut down within a few hours.

Sometimes a colony will find it's Queen to be defective. Maybe she is infertile from not mating soon enough, or from a number of reasons only the bees themselves know. If that is the case the colony will "ball" the Queen. That is, they will entirely surround her, interlacing their bodies, forming nothing less than a living prison. The queen is imobilised and unable to move. She will be kept imprisoned like this for up to twenty-four hours if necessary. Until she dies of suffocation or hunger.

Chris Haycock has been fascinated by bees and the world of beekeeping since falling into a ditch as a young boy and getting badly stung. If you would like to know more about bees and beekeeping it would probably be worthwhile to go to: http://www.secretsofbeekeeping.com

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