Recently we have all become aware of honeybees being in danger. From colony collapse to the dreaded Murder Hornet decimating the inhabitants of working bee hives.
There are several factors that contribute to Colony Collapse Disorder. Everything from the overuse of pesticides, to climate change, habitat loss to good old-fashioned disease are taking its toll on the honeybee population.
While the Murder Hornet also known as the Asian Giant Hornet, will enter a bee hive and it’s nothing short of a horror movie plot where the hornet uses it giant mandibles to decapitate the worker bees and feast on their bodies. The hornets then fly back to their nest and feed their young the thoraxes of the honeybees.
As I was recording a recent episode for The Nature Photography Podcast, the subject this time was honeybees. Here are the top five things I learned about honeybees.
1. Honeybees are a Keystone Species
We as humans need honeybees to keep our plants thriving.
By definition, a keystone species is one species that plays a major role in the ecosystem. With the removal of a keystone species, it could create a ripple effect across the ecosystem where the whole system could collapse.
The term “Keystone Species” comes from field of architecture and the building of an arch. The keystone is the center stone at the top center of the arch, that if were to be removed, it would cause the entire arch to fall down.
The bees take on this role of keystone species by pollinating our plants that we enjoy and consume every day. Without plant life flourishing, we as humans would have a very difficult time surviving.
It goes like this: The bees land on a flower of a plant to gather nectar. By doing this, they gather the pollen as it sticks to the hairs on their bodies. Then they fly over to the next plant and bring some of that pollen with them, there by pollinating THAT plant. The honeybees also bring pollen back to their hive to use in feeding the young and supplementing their diet.
The bees, while wearing this pollen sweater, run into other bees in the hive and crisscross the pollen from one bee to another. Those bees then go out and land on different plants there-by creating cross-pollination that will maintain the genetic diversity of the plant community.
2. Short Lifespan
The honeybee has a short but busy lifespan. When a new bee is borne. It emerges from its cell and starts to learn how to clean up. It cleans up her cell and begins helping out with other cells. Shortly after that, the honeybee can be cast into several different roles. One is the job of caring for the queen. Bringing her meals, cleaning her and such. Another job is to guard the hive by checking all the comings and goings at the front gate of the hive. Yet another job is undertaker. Removing dead bees from the hive. Lastly at about three weeks old, they become foragers. These are the bees we are most familiar with as they are the ones that go out and find plants with nectar and pollen to bring back to the hive. The life cycle of the honeybee? Six weeks.
While the honeybee worker bee only lives about six weeks, the queen of a hive can live up to five years.
3. Bees Need to Orient Themselves
When the honeybee is heading out for the first time to begin foraging for food, she needs to memorize how to get back to the hive. This is called the Orientation Flight. They start near the entrance to the hive, testing out their wings and making sure they know where the entrance to the hive is. Then they start to fly in little arcs or figure eights, out in front of the hive. Gradually increasing the arcs to wider areas. They are looking all around to see, that tree is there, that rock is in that place, and there is the entrance to the hive. Essentially, they are setting their GPS units to know how to get back safely.
4. There is More to Pollen than you Thought
The bees consume the nectar as their carbohydrate and they consume the pollen as their protein for a balanced diet. In fact, honey is mixed with pollen to form a sort of “bee bread”, that is fed as the first meal to a new emerging bee.
At some point, the bees go out to specifically gather pollen for the hive. In this case, the bees brush the pollen from their bodies down to their hind legs into what is called pollen baskets. These will collect and hold the pollen until the bee gets back to the hive. When the baskets are full, the bee makes her way back to the hive to dump off the pollen and then back out for another haul of pollen.
Drone honeybee
5. Few Male Bees in a Colony
The male bee is called a drone. The ratio is about one drone bee to every 100 female bees. The drone does basically nothing its entire life span, except when its time to mate. It gets fed by the worker bees, cleaned up after and tended to in every way. When it’s time to mate, the drone leaves the hive and goes up into the air where other drones are hanging out and meeting with queens from other hives or even new queens from their own hive. They are about two weeks old at this time.
Once the drone is successful in mating with a queen in mid-air, he dies. He has done his job and falls lifeless to the ground.
That same queen can mate with several other drones at the same event and then keep the drone’s genetic material inside them to fertilize eggs at a later date.
The honeybee is a fascinating subject and it’s this fascination that draws people into beekeeping. If you are interested in beekeeping, check out local organization in your area to find out what you need to get started beekeeping.