Getting bees-y with it
I just had to post this photo of my nearest and undoubtedly dearest donning, for the very first time, the bee keeping suit I bought him for his birthday last week. It’s the combination of the gay astronaut look and the expression on our friend’s face (perhaps saying, “well ain’t that a typical pose”) that still has me cackling. That, and I’m not sure if her lovely daughter was simply asking her mum for a cuddle or was instead wondering if disaster was imminent.
There are photos taken a week later that show my beloved chose to adopt a decidedly more serious, stern-looking turn out in the garden. He had to, really, bees being what they are, but it was primarily because he’d never before transferred 10,000 bees from short-term accommodation, called a nucleus, into their new fixed abode. Truth was, right now I wouldn’t have a clue how such magic is achieved—although I may do the bee keeping course next year to find out—and my two-legged honey handled the task of relocating our little honey-makers very calmly (at least, on the outside) and professionally.
The bees came from the Lancashire coast and took to their new home in North Yorkshire immediately. By the time they were taken out of the nucleus and put into the hive, also known as an apiary, they had been very busy building up their population—the queen lays thousands of eggs every day—and collecting pollen from who knows where, up to, if I recall correctly, a 10-mile radius, I was wrong in my first assertion, it’s a three-mile radius—but still pretty damn impressive!
The nucleus was over ninety per cent full by the time the bees were moved into the permanent hive, and while I was photographing the whole shebang from a safe distance I could hear them buzzing excitedly. Even without much knowledge of bees, I can tell their different emotional states from the noise they make. Bees seem to have a shared group mind—you know, like the Borg in Star Trek–and what one feels, the others feel too.
It’s a very good sign that since the bees were transferred there’s been lots more low-level contented but busy humming to be heard coming from deep within the innocuous-looking cedar wood box at the bottom of the garden, and it’s perfectly safe to stand close by (not in front of their door, lest they collide with you on outbound or return trips) and watch the remarkably dark little insects going about their business.
The bees are almost jet-black, which for most people would come as a surprise given how the wild bumblebee has become the de facto standard image of the bee in children’s books, when it isn’t at all. There are thousands of bee species of various colours, sizes, and shapes. Our honey bees can easily be mistaken for wasps until you see them up close.
We’ve no idea if we will get any honey this year. If the weather is hot and sunny in July, August and September, then we may be able to obtain just a little. If even one of those months turns out to be as dismal and depressing as most of June, then chances are there won’t be sufficient honey produced for them and for us, so it will be best, in that event, to leave what’s produced for the bees to use to feed themselves through the winter months.
Most people think bees hibernate. Some do, but honey bees don’t—while the workers die off without intervention, and the drones get thrown out to die in the autumn, there always remains a core population that doesn’t go outside again until the spring. They get a supplemental sugar solution feed to help them get through, but ours may yet end up with all their golden booty to rely upon as well. If they do, it will be for the first and last time. Next year they’ll definitely be able to make honey for us as well as themselves.
Every time the boy wonder goes to check on his bees, and top up the sugar solution they need while the hive is established, I can only imagine what understandably nosey neighbours think might be going on. A drill in preparation for nuclear war? Disease control? Bomb disposal? Our next-door neighbour isn’t making waves but doesn’t like bees at all, which to me is a strange position to hold. After all, bees are goodies. Without them, the human race would starve to death within 18 months or so. Earwigs, woodlice, slugs… I can understand repulsion at the sight of those creepy-crawlies, though they don’t do us any harm either. Wasps have their place in the universe, but fearing them does make a lot of sense.
But bees? Come on! I’ll run away from sticking my hand into a pile of leaves if there are cockroaches running all over it, but I’ve no fear of bees whatsoever. Like many animals, if you don’t upset them, they’ve no desire to hurt you. If I accidentally knocked over a hive, then of course I’d run as fast as my legs could carry me—it would be considered an act of war—but the chances of that happening are very, very remote when hives are sited sensibly away from the areas of most human activity in the garden. And a hive filled with bees and honey isn’t lightweight, either.
tags: apiary, beekeeping, bees, birthday, honey
11 comments on “Getting bees-y with it”
June 25th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I hate having my photo taken - I am just not photogenic in any way and the picture above proves it!
Couple of things - Bee’s collect pollen from a 3 mile radius not 10 which is why the old saying about moving bee’s is that you either move them 3ft or 3 miles as otherwise they will go back to their original hive
Secondly - Bee’s don’t kick out the workers in Autumn - the flying bee’s that have been collecting all the honey all summer die off naturally, as a worker bee’s life is only a short 6 weeks or so at that time of year. As the Queen stops laying in Winter, the recently emerged baby bee’s stay in a sort of suspended state so that they don’t become flying bee’s and can live in the hive for upto 6 months from October through to March when they will become flying bees (foragers) and bring in the early crop of pollen that is about to provide food for the newly laid brood and so ensure the colony survives
Its the Drones that get kicked out in Autumn as they serve no purpose in the hive at this time and basically consume an awful lot of food
June 25th, 2008 at 10:54 am
amethystdragon » I think it’s a really cute photo of you and your mini-me. You have such a great expression of glee on your face!
Factual assertions duly noted. Still, three miles is quite a way! So the baby bees enter into a kind of stasis, then, only not one that means they’re immobile but rather in a state of temporarily stunted development? They really are fascinating creatures.
I’ve amended what I wrote based on your feedback. But I know you meant at least three feet locally or at least three miles if moving them further, seeing as how where you and the parent hive are located is considerably further away from us than three miles! x
June 25th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
It means a maximum of 3ft or a minimum of 3 miles - basically its for when you move hives around the apiary -they can find their hive as long as its not moved more than 3ft at a time otherwise they will congregate on their orginal site
Yes they are fascinating creatures - their relationship with each other is just so alien to us.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
amethystdragon » Wow. So they operate by very obvious and precise mathematical principles, really, don’t they? I suppose we do but aren’t aware of it, although those who have a belief in numerology would be nodding their heads sagely at this point!
I’m not so sure about the alien part. I think we just can see it in bees, but not in ourselves–but when we share a group mind, it seems it’s always ugly… Mob violence, football hooliganism, the Inquisition… x
June 25th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
So everything I have been seeing on Dr Who isn’t true? We do still see bees? The whole infrastructure of ecology is not about to collapse with the lack of cross pollination leading to a decimation of plantlife thereby causing a collapse of numbers in the animal kingdom resulting in a severe shortage in all food chains and thereby the death of vast amounts of the population?
That’s a relief! Congratulations on the apiarism. X
June 25th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
TLJ » Hahahaha! You do know it’s Davros nicking all the bees in ‘Doctor Who’, don’t you? I presume the new Daleks exterminate you AND make honey… x
June 26th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Well, they do look like giant moving hives…
June 26th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Well, I think it’s a delightful photo of all of you… and I offer congratulations on the new additions to the garden! The neighbors may never know why their vegetables set earlier, their fruit trees set at all, but it’s thanks to the lot of you who make room for those bees.
Now, I think you need to get some of those iron on decals for D’s bee-suit, to advertise your website!
June 26th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Iron on decals for D’s bee-suit … I think that’s a fab idea lol
Love the photo
June 27th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Beautifu1 » Hmm, not so sure given the cost of those bee suits! But if you fancy doing some embroidery work…?
x
June 27th, 2008 at 9:44 am
The Hermit » Excellent points about how bees help everyone’s gardens to bloom and do well! I dunno about advertising my site… But it’d be cool to have a customised suit, not so sure about the decal idea, as I said to Beautifu1, but maybe a nice bit of embroidered frivolity… A big S on the back, maybe, like Superman… Superbeekeeper, eh?
x
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