Hive Mind: A Comprehensive Series of the Wide Wonderful World of Bees
Written By: Donna Defalco
Introducing our latest buzzworthy addition to the property: two brand-new beehives! 🐝 As we welcome these remarkable residents, we couldn't resist the opportunity to dive deeper into the enchanting world of bees with the lovely Donna Defalco.
Join us on an immersive journey as we uncover the secrets of bee society, their intricate communication methods, and the vital role they play in our environment. Stay tuned as we embark on this exciting adventure, sharing insights, stories, and a newfound appreciation for the wide, wonderful world of bees.
We humans have a natural fear of flying insects and for most, the sting of a bee is at the top of the list! After a chance encounter with a flying frenemy, it’s not uncommon to wonder (or yelp), why do insects exist at all? But, like all creatures great and small, each one has its purpose, we just need to do a little digging sometimes to discover what those purposes are.
I’ve always been particularly fascinated by bees, their role in the ecosystem and their impact on human existence. For the past 15 years, the honey bee community has had my undivided attention. If humans had half of the skills that bees have to communicate, build and cooperate well, who knows what this world could ‘be’ (pun completely intended)? What I do know is that the 400+ species that reside in the state of NY, the 4000+ species in the US and the more than 20,000+ species worldwide are instrumental to our food chain, and subsequently to the human race. So, since we are so dependent on these fascinating pollinators, I thought it would make sense to quell the fear and build respect for these incredible small creatures. All it takes is a little information. Let’s take a tour through the hives of honeybees!
In the world of honeybees, women rule! There is a hierarchy within the colony, with the queen as the ultimate leader of the whole hive. Each hive has about 50,000 bees. Worker honeybees are all females and are the only ones most people ever see flying around outside of the hive. They forage for food, build the honeycombs, and protect the hive. Drones, or the male bees, are there for mating purposes only. And, once their job is done…so are they.
While we will never know exactly why the bee hierarchy is set up this way, it is endlessly interesting to explore:
1. The Queen’s role is simple, yet essential to the life of the hive. Her fate is determined before she is born, although the facts of her life are far from royal. Her sole job is to reproduce, laying eggs that will spawn the next generation of bees. Her selfless service to the hive has her laying about 1500 eggs per day. She also regulates the hive's activities by producing chemicals that guide the behavior of all the other bees.
Becoming queen bee is a matter of luck. Queens become queens only because as eggs they had the good fortune of being laid in cells specifically designated for raising queens. Those cells are then fed more than the others with something called “royal jelly”. This special food contains more honey and pollen than the “larval jelly” that is eaten by workers and drones. Royal jelly allows the queen larvae to grow larger than other female bees. The chosen queen (like most of nature, the one who hatches first) is ruthless, killing off any other queen cells and sending pheromones out that prevent any other workers from being fertilized. In her defense, without a strong ruler, life in the hive would become chaotic. The worker bees would forage less for nectar and pollen, and bring smaller quantities back to the hive, jeopardizing its survival. So as soon as the queen’s egg production slows or she passes on, worker bees immediately designate new royal cells for a fresh crop of virgin queen contenders. (This caste system makes the London Seasons of “Bridgerton” look positively tame by comparison!)
2. Female workers forage for food (pollen and nectar from flowers), build and protect the hive, clean, and circulate air by beating their wings to keep the temperature of the hive stable, no matter the weather. They care for the queen and her larvae and produce honey. As mentioned above, when the queen dies, workers will create a new one by feeding her royal jelly, the special elixir that enables her to transform into a fertile queen. As the saying goes, a woman's work is never done! In fact, there are so many worker bees, they are divided up into two groups:
House Bees
Forager Bees
The house bees have a long and varied list of daily duties:
Nursing: As nurses do, these tender beings feed and care for growing larvae
Attending the Queen: These ladies-in-waiting attend the queen, groom her and feed her frequently.
Cleaning the Hive: The Mundane Chore but Clearing the hive of debris to keep out bacteria and viruses that can impact the health of the hive.
Cleaning other Bees: Without a shower and plumbing in the hive, this involves a lot of pruning and cleaning dust, stray hairs, and other debris off several others in rapid succession.
Undertaker duties: About 90% of bees die outside the hive. Those that die in the hive are dropped immediately outside the hive to dry. After they have dried, undertaker bees pick them up, fly them several hundred meters from the hive, and drop them to their final resting place. This is done to prevent dead bees from accumulating by the hive, which could attract pests or disease.
Building Honeycomb: Bees secrete beeswax and use it to build honeycomb. Oftentimes hundreds of bees will work on the same small section of comb.
Capping Honeycomb: This is one of the most important positions in the hive as capped honey is what ensures their survival. Bees secrete beeswax and use it to cap pupae cells and cells full of ripened honey.
Pollen Packing: House bees collect pollen from returning foragers and pack it in cells for later consumption, essentially ensuring that the communal pantry is always full.
Nectar Ripening: Consider these ladies the executive chefs of the kitchen, preparing meals for the evening and setting up the menus for the entire year. House bees ripen nectar into raw honey by depositing it in cells, and fanning the nectar so that excess water evaporates.
Repairing Hive: Propolis is a resin made by bees from the buds of poplars and cone-bearing trees. Bees use it to repair cracks in the hive and to cover foreign particles that are too large to remove.
The Roles of the Forager:
Collecting Nectar & Pollen: Consider it food shopping on steroids. Bees visit 50-100 flowers to collect nectar and pollen on each foraging trip. They carry nectar in their “honey sacks” and pollen in the “pollen baskets” on their legs.
Collecting Propolis: This sticky business gives the repair team all the tools they need. Certain bees only collect propolis, gathering the resinous substance from trees and carrying it home in their baskets.
Collecting Water: As the saying goes, “ still water runs deep.” One percent of bees in the hive collect water. Water helps keep the hive cool and allows nurse bees to dilute raw honey for young larvae.
Guarding the Hive: The Apimondia Police Force! The guard bees protect the hive, stinging intruders and emitting a pheromone to warn bees inside the hive of impending danger.
3. Again, the drones (males), have only one purpose in life, which is to mate with the Queen. There are 100 female bees to every male drone, so these guys are kept busy. Sounds like testosterone heaven? Think again. These poor chaps, aside from being mating machines, are completely helpless and clueless.They have no idea how to feed themselves or forage for food, they don’t have stingers, and they die immediately post-coitus. Those that escape this fate, during winter when the queen does not mate and food is scarce, are forced out of the hive by the women, leaving them to starve. Nature is beautiful, but she is also cruel.
“Country Mouse and City Mouse”: Hive variations between wild and domesticated bees.
Though their societal structures and output are the same, there are differences in the homes wild and domesticated bees make for themselves. Wild honey bees create nest-like hives in rock crevices, hollow trees and other areas that scout bees deem appropriate for their colony, offering them shelter near sunlight, water and food sources. Domesticated honey bees, the “trust funders” of their species, are provided lovely condos by their keepers as the foundation for building their homes.
Indoors, wild and domesticated both make their hives by chewing wax until it becomes quite soft. They take large amounts of this pliable wax to create the cells of the honeycomb. The worker bees stay close together, fanning the hive to keep the temperature at about 95 degrees so that they can control the wax’s texture.
When observing the honeycomb up close, it is amazing to see that each cell is almost identical in size. These cells are called six sided tubes. These shapes were developed for optimal honey production because they do not require a lot of wax and can hold more honey for storage. The hexagonal cells of the honeycombs are also used to house larvae and other brood cells, in addition to storing honey, nectar, and pollen.
With 50,000 + bees in the hive, how do they all get along? Cue the magic of pheromones. These little creatures are highly communicative and social beings, and use their pheromones to “speak”, direct and regulate the communal tone of the hive overall.
There are two types of pheromones that honeybees emit:
Primer pheromones, which are released mainly by the queen and brood. These are meant to keep the social order in line. One of the main pheromones released by the queen is a blend that is called the “Queen’s Signal”. Without it, the social order of the colony would fall apart. This signal encourages the workers to do their jobs. It also prevents them from raising new queens and stops them from laying eggs, essentially preventing anarchy within the hive.
Releaser pheromones tend to be emitted by workers in response to certain events that can affect the colony. One of the most important is the orientation pheromone at the entrance to the hive. This is used to guide other bees, especially ones on their first flight, back home. The recruitment pheromone is used when designating a site that they want to draw other worker bees to. This is a coveted pheromone and is usually saved to attract forager bees to water sources and extremely good nectar flows.
The Queen also has her own releaser pheromone that draws bees around her to groom and feed her, to attract drones for mating and, most importantly, to keep her hive around her if they swarm.
The Sting Operation
The impetus for bee stings is also a releaser, the alarm pheromone, issued by worker bees to perceived intruders. This is released as soon as the worker prepares to sting, alerting other guard bees that there is a need for defense. Even after the deed is done, the pheromone continues emitting from the stinger stuck in the victim, attracting more bees. So, if you find yourself in this position, it is best to walk away as quickly as you can and scrape that little stinger out of your skin. It’s important to remember that the bee didn’t angrily seek you out just to attack; you just happened to get in their flying path (a.k.a the foraging trail) and interrupted them bringing food and water back to the hive. In the end, all behaviors are always about survival.
I hope you enjoyed this first foray into honeybee life- we’ll be exploring much more of the intricate bee universe in blogs to come! Until then, the next time you encounter a bee, be it a honeybee or another of the hundreds of other species buzzing around your gardens, fields, parks or city streets, don’t run or swat! Just take a step back and watch these amazing creatures do what they do best: POLLINATE! What a gift for us all to be able to reap the benefits of their endless hard work, not just the dazzling array of honey and hive-originated products they create, but also the beautiful local food from the farmers around us who depend on these pollinators to grow their crops for our consumption.