Let's talk about honeybees
Our honeybees, the European honeybee, are the real makers behind my candles. Honeybees have been semi-domesticated for thousands of years to produce honey, wax, propolis and other products. Honeybees form a colony in order to survive. A colony comprises of one queen, thousands of female workers, and drones (male honeybees). A queen will spend her entire life laying eggs. A worker bee will have many roles within the colony throughout its short life. A drones only responsibility is to mate with a virgin queen and doesn't contribute at all with the running of a colony.
A queen honeybee will mate only once but with many drones. It's not terribly romantic. Queens can live up to 5 years. Queen bees are often thought to be in charge of the colony, but really its the worker bees that make all the decisions.
There are summer worker bees and winter worker bees. Summer worker bees only live up to 6 weeks and will have many roles as they mature. The roles from larvae are; clean the hive, polish and clean cells, feed larvae, feed the queen, make wax and build honeycomb, process and store honey, guard the colony entrance, forage for nectar/pollen, then finally forage for water and propolis. During the height of the summer, a colony can have up to 60,000 individuals. When winter comes the colony population will reduce to 15,000 and the worker bees has a lifespan of 6 months. their main job is to keep the queen and themselves warm.
Drones are accepted in any colony and appear to move quite freely between colonies. during winter they are forced out of the colony.
A queen honeybee will mate only once but with many drones. It's not terribly romantic. Queens can live up to 5 years. Queen bees are often thought to be in charge of the colony, but really its the worker bees that make all the decisions.
There are summer worker bees and winter worker bees. Summer worker bees only live up to 6 weeks and will have many roles as they mature. The roles from larvae are; clean the hive, polish and clean cells, feed larvae, feed the queen, make wax and build honeycomb, process and store honey, guard the colony entrance, forage for nectar/pollen, then finally forage for water and propolis. During the height of the summer, a colony can have up to 60,000 individuals. When winter comes the colony population will reduce to 15,000 and the worker bees has a lifespan of 6 months. their main job is to keep the queen and themselves warm.
Drones are accepted in any colony and appear to move quite freely between colonies. during winter they are forced out of the colony.
Comments
Post a Comment