Beekeeping Paper

Yeet

English 10 CB

Mrs. Richardson

November 2, 2015

“Bee” creative

        When talking about beekeeping people believe it is a very boring activity to do. What people don’t know is that beekeeping is very difficult and it’s very fun. An interesting fact about honeybees is that they are not native to the USA, they came from Europe and were brought here by early settlers coming to the “New World”. Agriculture depends greatly on honeybees for pollination. Honey bees account for close to 80% of all insect pollination. As the website facts about honeybees says, “Without such pollination, we would see a significant decrease in the yield of fruits and

vegetables” (“Facts about honey bees”). Beekeeping is not just every day going out and looking at the bees. It’s actually very fun to watch all of the bees swarm all over the place and create these amazing nests all by themselves. Honey bees are very social insects, which means that they live together in large, well-organized family groups. As the website the colony and its organization says, “Social insects are highly evolved insects that engage in a variety of complex tasks not practiced by the multitude of solitary insects. Communication, complex nest construction, environmental control, defense, and division of the labor are just some of the neat behaviors that honey bees have developed over the years” (“The colony and its organization”). The three main topics about honeybees that are crucial in the survival of honey bees these include; the honeybee nest, the life as a bee, and threats and ways they protect themselves.

        The first topic is the honeybee nest. A bee’s nest consists of a number of vertical combs that hang parallel to each other. The combs are composed of hexagonal cells.  Two types of cells include: smaller cells, worker cells, and larger cells, drone cells. They store honey and pollen in the upper part of the comb. Every nest consists of a fertile queen, a lot of sterile female worker bees, and some fertile males called drones. (“Organization of a bee colony”) The most asked question about bees is “Why do honeybees sting?” The reason for this is actually that they are not aggressive by their nature, they only sting unless they are protecting their hive from predators or are just surprised and they panic about something. (“Facts about honeybees”). Honey bees are split up into types, or a castes system, which include three different ones. The three types are the queen bee, the worker bees, and the drones (“Organization of a bee colony”). The queen’s main job is to just make sure there are always fertilized eggs. Now worker bees are the bees where they get the saying “Busy as a bee”. Worker bees’ job’s are to defend their hive and to forage pollen for the hive. Next is the drones, they have one task to make sure to fertilize the queen. They mate outdoors usually in midair and die soon after mating (“Honey Bee Colony”). The queen bee is the most important bee in the hive. If the hive did not have a queen then they would not be able to reproduce and ultimately would not be able to stay alive. As the website honey bee colony says, “An egg-laying queen is important in establishing a strong honey bee colony, and is capable of producing 2,000 eggs in one day (“Honey Bee Colony”). The queen bee always mates early in their lifetime and store millions of sperm in their bodies. (“Honey Bee Colony”) The queen is easily distinguished from other members of the colony. Her body is much longer that the other bees, and it is a lot bigger during mating season because of all the sperm held in her body. (“The colony and its organization”). The next type of bee is the workers. They are the smallest, but they have the greatest population of all the bees. The population of the worker bees is insane, they take up at least 98% of the total population in the hive. The workers are all female and cannot mate. They have long tongues used for sucking nectar from flowers. Their most important duties are cleaning the hive and the comb, feeding the brood, caring for the queens every needs, comb building, ventilating the hive, packing pollen, water nectar or honey into the combs, executions, and guard duty

(“Organization of a bee colony”). The last kind of bee is the drone. They are all male honeybees, with only one task and that is to fertilize the queen (“Honey bee colony”).

Drones have the biggest mass of the bees in the colony. Drones are usually only present during late spring and summer, the purpose being for mating season. (“The colony and its organization”) They also sadly die soon after mating season because they have fulfilled their only task, which is to fertilize the queen (“Honey bee colony”).