HONEY BEES
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are social insects that live in large colonies. During the summer months there is an average of 35, 000 bees in a hive, consisting of one Queen bee, hundreds of male bees (drones) and thousands of female worker bees. These 3 types of bee (called castes) in the hive all have very different jobs.
QUEEN BEE
There is one Queen bee in a colony, larger in size than all the other bees and her job is to lay all the eggs - over 2000 a day!
WORKER BEES
The worker bees are the smallest members of the colony. They are sterile females and have many jobs, including foraging for pollen and nectar, feeding the Queen bee and the drones, carrying in water, fanning the hive to maintain the right temperature, building honeycomb, removing the dead and guarding the hive against invaders such as wasps.
DRONES
The drones are the male bees, produced from unfertilized eggs. Drones have bigger eyes and do not have stingers. They cannot help defend the hive and they do not have the body parts to collect pollen or nectar, so their only job is to mate with Queen bees. During autumn, worker bees prevent the drones from entering the hive since they are no longer needed, effectively starving them to death.
The honey bee is the only bee to maintain a colony throughout the winter and during these cold months the colony decreases to around 5,000 bees, as the males are kicked out of the hive and the Queen stops laying eggs. The colony relies on its stores of honey to last it through the winter months when it is too cold for the bees to forage or there is no forage available.
As beekeepers, we must inspect the hive every 7 days during the summer, to check many things, including the health and size of the colony and to ensure that the bees have enough honey stored to see them through the winter. Any surplus honey made is what we can extract and jar. Any surplus beeswax and propolis is also used to make products including our candles, lip balms and wax melts.
