The Story of Local Honey and Bees. I just made a deal with a local honey producer to buy ALL his Sourwood Honey, forever. His price isnt cheap but if I dont pay it, I just wont have Sourwood Honey to sell. The laws of supply and demand, I love them. I asked him what is happening with the “disappearing bees” I keep hearing about. This question lead to a thorough education about bees and I want to share with you a little about what I learned. It is fascinating! Eddie said that the honey bees are disappearing around here for two reasons, Hive Beetles and Chemicals. Why the chemicals are killing the bees is pretty obvious. They eat the pollen from the blossoms that have been sprayed and it makes them sick and it kills them. The Hive Beetles are migrating here more than in the past through packaged bees coming from places like Southern States. The Hive Beetles lay 200 to 300 eggs a day and their eggs hatch in 2-3 days. The Queen Bee lays 1500-2000 eggs a day but it takes 21 days for them to hatch. Also she may not lay that many eggs because the number totally depends on her food supply. Eventually though, there are more Hive Beetles than bees and the beetles take over the hive. The Hive Beetles eat the honey and cause it to sour then the bees wont touch it. I think bee society is totally fascinating. We really dont know how bees think. They may know more about God than we do, as far as we know. Anyway, the Queen leaves the hive and goes on a mating flight. She must mate with more than one drone. She has ten days to mate and then she does not leave the hive again. The Queen must be kept at 92.5 degrees at all times. In the winter the worker bees cluster around her in the middle of the hive to keep her warm. If there are not enough bees to keep her warm the hive is lost. If the Queen is lost to the hive the way a new queen is produced is the worker bees find a fresh egg and feed it Royal Jelly. Royal Jelly comes from the glands of the worker bees, Eddie said not unlike sperm. All the eggs receive Royal Jelly from the worker bees but the Queen egg gets a whole lot more. The Queen bee must come from the egg of another Queen bee and not one of the worker bees. The egg starts out about the size of a grain of rice but after all that Royal Jelly it grows to about the size of a Peanut. The worker bees draw the Queen egg and cap it with wax. Meaning they encapsulate the egg and when she hatches she eats her way out. Once the drone mates with the Queen he “falls off dead” is the way Eddie put it. Adding, that it must be that good for him. Eddie says the drones dont do a “damn thing” but eat and mate. He says they are like the Indians were, and make the squaws do all the work. The women around here sometimes think they are married to drones. :)
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 18:01:44 +0000
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