Forget about honey, pollen and royal jelly. Just think of a world without beans, tomatoes, onions and carrots, not to mention the hundreds of other vegetables, oilseeds and fruits that are dependent upon bees for pollination. And the livestock that are dependent upon bee-pollinated forage plants, such as clover. No human activity or ingenuity could ever replace the work of bees and yet it is largely taken for granted. It is often not realized just how easy it is to help or hinder their effectiveness as crop pollinators nor how much is lost by their loss.
Whilst the thought of bees fills many people with fear because of their capacity to sting, we are only too aware of the fundamental importance of having bees on our farm as they are natural pollinators. However, they have far more uses than that as they also produce honey and beeswax. Such is their importance and value that many people choose to take up beekeeping both as a hobby and, in some cases, as a commercial venture.
To United States agriculture alone, the annual value of honey bee pollination can be counted in billions of dollars. Bees pollinate about one-sixth of the world's flowering plant species and some 400 of its agricultural plants. Poorly pollinated plants produce fewer, often misshapen, fruits and lower yields of seed with inevitable consequences upon quality, availability and price of food. One of the few farm activities that can actually increase yields, rather than simply protect existing yields from losses, is to manage bees to encourage good pollination. The destructive effects of the varroa mite (See varroa - a 'mitey' pest of bees), loss of wild bee nesting habitat, low world honey prices, and the use of pesticides are making conservation of wild bees more important than ever.
Wild bees need long-lasting, undisturbed nesting sites in sunny, relatively bare patches of ground with a diversity of nectar and pollen-rich plants nearby. The greater the variety of flowering plants, the greater the number of bee species that will be attracted. One of the major risks, to both bee and plant diversity, is their separation through increasing fragmentation of wild uncultivated areas. Without bees, many flowering plants fail to set seed and without flowering plants, there is no food for bees. Leaving field margins, ditches, roadside verges and woodland edges unsprayed with chemicals, and undisturbed, does much for bee conservation.
By definition, chemical insecticides are harmful but individual products vary greatly in their toxicity to bees. Pesticides may kill quickly or, worse, kill slowly. If not immediately killed, bees can carry the contaminated pollen back to the colony where it enters the food chain and kills many more.
Humans have been managing bees in some form or fashion for many thousands of years. Some say as far back as 8000 years.
Honey bees are fascinating creatures who socially manage their hive through a complex system of smells (pheromones), actions, and most amazingly, a symbolic dance. Honey bees are one of the few animals that have developed a symbolic language.
The Queen Bee
A queen can live for a number of years as long as she is satisfactorily laying worker eggs. Worker bees live roughly 6 weeks in the summer and up to 3 months in the winter (since they are not working). Drones can live for months at a time, but since they are not vital workers, they will be booted out in the fall ending their lives of leisure.
In overly simplistic terms, a queen's purpose is to lay eggs and to unify the colony by permeating the hive with her pheromone. Her particular scent essentially becomes the hive's identifying scent and informs all bees that all is well in the hive. She never leaves the hive other than to mate shortly after she is born, or if the hive decides to split and/or find a new home. The queen only mates once in her lifetime. When she runs out of sperm from that mating, the workers will raise a new queen and dispatch the old. Ah... the circle of life.
The Worker Bees
A worker bee's purpose is to do all jobs within and without the hive. Workers do most of the vital work in the hive at progressively different times in their lives. Shortly after birth they become maids for a time and clean the hive, then they nurse the young for a certain period of time. Later they finally join the bulk of their sisters and collect pollen and nectar (pollen to feed the babies and nectar to make honey to feed the adults). Some become guard bees; others become undertaker bees, removing the dead; etc.
The Drones
Drones essentially do nothing but eat and attempt to mate. They can't even help defend the hive since they are stinger-less. When the weather is nice enough, they fly out of the hive at around 1pm to what is called the drone congregation area and wait for a virgin queen to fly by. When she does, they will do their best to become one of the 13 to 18 drones to mate with that queen. Unfortunately for that drone, mating is fatal. But they have served their life's purpose and their genetics carry on — quite literally survival of the fittest in action. Drones and queens mate on the wing. Since drones within a hive are the sons of that hive's queen (or brothers if there is a new queen), they don't inbreed unless by accident of fate outside of the hive.
Honey bees are amazing animals who's history, though far longer than mankind's, has been intricately woven into our own history for millenia. So we welcome Honey bees back to Coopers Farm. There will be 3 hives which will produce local honey for the farm. So, the next time you see a honey bee on a flower in Hadlow Down, stop for a moment to ponder and appreciate this beautiful and amazing little creature as there is a good chance its from our farm.
