Inside and Out of the Beehive

The Power of the Colony

Honey bees are truly remarkable creatures, and their intricate social structure is a wonder to behold. As we delve into the world of beekeeping, it’s often challenging to fathom the level of collaboration that exists among these tiny beings. In fact, the workings of a honey bee colony are so harmonious that it’s helpful to envision it as a single, cohesive organism.

Every individual bee has its role to play, albeit a small one, and a relatively short lifespan. It may seem that each bee’s contribution goes unnoticed, but the true beneficiaries of their hard work are the colonies themselves.

The Hive and Its Inhabitants

To avoid any confusion, it’s essential to clarify the terminology. In the context of honey bees, “colony” refers to the collective group of bees, while “hive” or “beehive” refers to the physical structure where the colony resides.

Understanding honey bee reproduction can be quite perplexing for us. Birth and death occur on a massive scale within a bee colony, driven by necessity. This biological process also involves some intriguing genetic mechanisms. The best analogy for bee reproduction is to view the entire colony as a single, complex “organism.” When a colony thrives, it has the remarkable ability to send a part of itself, known as a swarm, out into the world to establish a new honey bee colony. This process essentially results in the colony splitting into two distinct entities.

It’s important to note that bee reproduction is vastly different from our own!

There is a wealth of information to discover about honey bees, and while an in-depth understanding of these intricacies isn’t essential for beginners in beekeeping, it’s valuable to comprehend the unique dynamics both inside and outside the hive.

The Diversity of Bee Types

Honey bees distinguish themselves from humans through their distinctive division of labor and the presence of three distinct bee types within a single colony: one male and two females. Male bees are known as drones, while female bees can take on either a worker or queen role. When it comes to numbers, a typical colony comprises a single queen and tens of thousands of workers. Therefore, if you’re a female bee, the odds are overwhelmingly high that you’re fulfilling the role of a diligent worker bee.

The Lifecycle of Bees: Inside the Beehive and Beyond

A Well-Structured Colony

Honey bee colonies operate like finely-tuned machines, where each bee has a specific role, and these roles are strictly divided by caste. Each caste also possesses biological adaptations tailored to its responsibilities.

The Tireless Workers

Within the hive, there are three castes, with worker bees being the most numerous, constituting over 85% of the colony. Worker bees are the backbone of the hive, diligently performing essential tasks, including the collection of nectar and pollen. When you spot a honey bee buzzing from flower to flower, it’s almost always a worker.

Despite being female, worker bees are sterile. This infertility is influenced by a pheromone released by the queen, which suppresses the development of the worker bee’s reproductive organs. Although they have the biological capability to lay eggs, worker bees cannot fertilize them. Consequently, any eggs laid by worker bees are destined to become drones.

During the summer, a worker bee’s lifespan typically spans about 5 to 6 weeks, during which they undertake various roles within the hive. The honey bee colony relies heavily on the collective effort of its worker bees to function efficiently.

Rather than assigning specific tasks to individual bees, the colony efficiently organizes labor by age. Consequently, a worker bee’s role at any given time depends largely on her age. Throughout her approximately month-long life, she will likely participate in various hive activities.

The Journey of a Worker Bee

The life of a worker bee begins as a solitary egg within the familiar hexagonal cell of the honeycomb. It takes 21 days for a worker egg to mature into a fully developed adult worker bee. Upon emergence, her first task is to clean the cell where she matured, which will later serve as a nursery for a new egg.

Next, she becomes a nurse bee, responsible for feeding and caring for the developing larvae, maintaining their warmth, and cleaning their cells.

Between the ages of 12 and 20 days, worker bees transition to housekeeping roles within the hive. Their responsibilities encompass numerous tasks, such as producing wax, constructing comb, storing nectar and pollen, regulating hive temperature, guarding the entrance, removing deceased members, and tending to the queen.

Around the 20-day mark, worker bees become foragers. The colony relies on foragers to gather vital resources from the outside world, including pollen (mainly for feeding the brood), nectar (for honey production), water (for drinking and cooling), and tree resin (for propolis production).

Foraging continues until a worker bee’s wings wear out, typically about ten days later, resulting in her eventual demise from exhaustion. During her lifetime, a worker bee can cover approximately 500 miles in flight, utilizing every inch of her wingspan. This sequence of tasks aligns with the worker bee’s lifespan: initially, comfortable work inside the hive while young and robust, followed by more strenuous outdoor work for as long as she can manage.

However, worker bees can live considerably longer, particularly during the winter when foraging becomes impractical due to cold conditions. Their primary focus in the winter months is to maintain the hive’s warmth, crucial for survival.

The physiological characteristics of worker bees vary depending on the time of year in which they emerge. “Winter bees” are better adapted to endure the cold months and may live through to spring. This adaptability is crucial since brood production is minimal during the winter season.

The Remarkable Life of the Queen Bee

The Queen’s Role in the Hive

Much like in human societies, a honey bee colony typically has only one queen bee, with a few temporary exceptions. However, it’s important to note that the queen bee doesn’t govern the hive’s decisions and actually possesses a smaller brain compared to the worker bees. Her influence on the hive’s atmosphere is primarily through the release of pheromones, and her most significant role is to give birth to every bee within the colony.

Although the queen may hold a central position within the colony, the true intellectual prowess lies with the worker bees.

The Unique Path to Royalty

For a beekeeper installing a package of bees in the spring, it’s intriguing to observe that two months later, nearly all the tens of thousands of bees within the hive will be new arrivals, with one notable exception—the queen.

A queen bee, like all bees, starts as an egg. During her larval stage, she is fed royal jelly beyond the third day. Royal jelly, a creamy substance secreted by worker bees, has an exceptionally high sugar content. This special diet, along with a larger birth cell, contributes to her development into a much larger bee with the ability to exude specific pheromones.

Mating is among the queen’s first responsibilities. A few days after her birth, she embarks on a series of mating flights, which occur at heights of up to 100 feet in locations determined by the bees themselves. Drones gather at these seemingly random locations, where the queen, about a week old, joins them.

The process isn’t straightforward for the drones—mating occurs in mid-flight. Notably, the queen usually mates with approximately 10 to 20 drones, providing a lifetime supply of sperm.

A mated queen stores up to a million sperm, using them one at a time to fertilize eggs, which can last up to five years.

After mating, the queen returns to the hive and begins laying eggs three days later. This becomes her primary duty.

A Life Dedicated to Egg-Laying

During the spring, as the hive’s population surges, the queen lays eggs tirelessly, averaging one egg every 20 seconds. A colony may start with 20,000 to 30,000 members and grow to over 60,000 individuals later in the year, each with a lifespan of just over a month. This results in a remarkable number of eggs, all originating from a single queen bee.

Occasionally, excessive egg-laying can lead to swarming, which, from a bee’s perspective, is a natural and necessary process for colony reproduction and growth.

When swarming occurs, the old queen departs the hive (for the first time since mating) with a significant portion of the worker bees and a few drones to establish a new hive. Meanwhile, back in the original hive, new queens emerge from their cells.

However, why raise multiple queens to replace just one? The newly emerged queens, as their first task, engage in a struggle for dominance, with only one queen ultimately surviving.

Swarming may not always result from a thriving colony but can also occur when the existing queen becomes old or fatigued. In such cases, the colony follows the same process to raise a new queen. If the queen dies unexpectedly, the workers can swiftly produce an emergency queen.

The Role of Royal Jelly

All larvae receive royal jelly for their first three days of life. If any larvae are younger than three days old, the workers have the option to continue feeding them royal jelly and extend the size of their cells. Conversely, if there are no larvae under three days old, the colony cannot produce a new queen, as the larvae would have already had their royal jelly supply interrupted.

The Fascinating World of Drones and Pheromones in the Beehive

Meet the Drones – Males in the Colony

The final caste within a honey bee colony is the drone, and these are the males of the colony. In a typical hive, you’ll find only a few hundred drones, and their primary role is to mate with the queen. Drones possess exceptionally large eyes that help them locate the queen during her mating flights, but unlike worker bees, they lack stingers or foraging tools.

When a queen lays an unfertilized egg, it develops into a drone. This intriguing fact means that drones have no fathers but indeed have grandfathers – drones from the distant past whose stored sperm fertilized their mother.

However, it’s worth noting that the lives of drones are quite short-lived. Those fortunate enough to mate with the queen during her high-flying mating flights meet a rather unfortunate fate. After mating, a drone’s reproductive organs are forcibly separated from his body and remain within the queen, leading to his demise.

Even if a drone doesn’t engage in reproduction, his life expectancy remains limited. In times of food scarcity or as winter approaches, drones are often the first to be expelled from the hive by worker bees. Once outside, they are denied reentry and face a grim fate. Their existence on the outside world is relatively brief.

Communication and Social Harmony

The remarkable coordination and cooperation within a colony of tens of thousands of bees can be attributed to the critical role of pheromones in bee communication.

Honey bee pheromones can be classified into two primary groups: primer and releaser pheromones.

• Primer pheromones are chiefly released by the queen and brood, serving to maintain the social order within the colony.
• Releaser pheromones, on the other hand, are typically emitted by worker bees in response to specific events or stimuli.

One of the most crucial primer pheromones is the “queen signal.” This unique blend of pheromones plays a pivotal role in upholding the colony’s social structure. It encourages worker bees to carry out their assigned tasks, prevents them from raising new queens, and inhibits them from laying eggs.

The queen signal also exerts a releaser effect that attracts other bees toward the queen. She uses this ability to gather workers for grooming, to attract drones during mating flights, and to maintain group cohesion during swarming events. In the unfortunate event of the queen’s death or weakened state, the absence of the queen signal prompts workers to initiate the process of raising new queens.

Additionally, brood within the hive produces their own primer pheromones, which serve a dual purpose of preventing workers from laying eggs and maintaining the colony’s balance. Since worker bees do not mate, they can only lay unfertilized male eggs, an unsustainable scenario for the hive.

Worker bees predominantly emit releaser pheromones in response to various circumstances they encounter. One well-known example is the alarm pheromone, released when a worker bee stings an intruder.

The alarm pheromone begins to release as soon as a worker bee prepares to sting, signaling to other bees that defensive action is required. Even after the sting, the pheromone continues to be released from the stinger lodged in the intruder, further attracting more bees to the scene. This is a compelling reason for humans to retreat from a hive if they happen to be stung.

Workers also utilize orientation pheromones at the hive’s entrance to guide returning bees back home and during their maiden flights to ensure they can find their way back. Recruitment pheromones are reserved for marking locations they want to lead other workers to, often reserved for water sources and particularly abundant nectar flows.

Bee Communication: The Fascinating Dance and Seasonal Activities

The Dance of the Foragers

Bees have another intriguing way of communicating – through dance! This remarkable dance is performed by forager bees who have discovered an abundant nectar source, and it conveys astonishingly precise information to their fellow hive members.

To share the exciting news, the forager performs a dance consisting of intricate figure-eight patterns and straight lines while vigorously vibrating her wings. Every element of this dance carries vital information that is well understood by the observing foragers.

• The duration of the dance signifies the distance of the nectar source from the hive. For every 75 milliseconds of dancing, approximately 330 feet are added to the distance.
• The intensity of the dance reflects the richness of the nectar source. A vigorous and intense waggle indicates a substantial nectar find.
• However, the most astonishing aspect is the angle of the dance, where the forager conveys the direction of the nectar source in relation to the sun. If the nectar lies directly in line with the current position of the sun, the bee will dance vertically upward on the “dance floor.” If it’s, for example, 80 degrees to the left of the sun’s position, she’ll perform the dance at an angle 80 degrees to the left of vertical. The other bees comprehend these cues and will fly off in the correct direction to locate the nectar.

While this is the primary communication dance, there are two other types:

• Shake Dance: When a substantial nectar source is discovered, and more foragers are needed to collect it, a worker bee performs a “shake” dance. This involves moving around the hive while shaking her body, signaling to other workers to join the foraging efforts immediately.
• Tremble Dance: In situations where considerable nectar has already been brought back to the hive and needs to be ripened into honey, a worker bee conducts a “tremble” dance. She shakes her legs as she walks, causing her body to tremble back and forth. This encourages other workers to engage in the processing and storage of excess nectar.

Seasonal Activities in the Hive

Honey bees are resilient, but they require temperatures above 57°F to survive, which can be a challenge in colder regions. So, how do they manage this? The answer lies in their tireless work throughout the warm months to stockpile resources for the cold ones.

• Spring: As the days lengthen, temperatures rise, and flowers begin to bloom, spring becomes an exciting time in the hive. This period is marked by intense pollen and nectar collection, along with robust brood production. The queen may lay over 2,000 eggs per day, resulting in a rapid increase in population. Spring is also when the workers may start raising new drones (none overwinter) and new queens if space becomes limited or the old queen’s performance wanes. Swarming is most likely in mid to late spring.
• Early to Mid-Summer: During this season, nectar and pollen resources are at their peak, and the population of foragers is fully aligned with the abundant forage. Nectar collection is at its zenith.
• Late Summer: Nectar and pollen flows start to decline, leading to a slowdown in brood production.
• Fall: This is the time for final preparations. Drones, though not contributing to the colony, consume food, which becomes precious as winter approaches. Drones are often evicted from the hive by worker bees, ensuring resources are saved for the essential members of the colony. Rationing means no new brood production as well.
• Winter: Survival becomes the primary focus. Bees, with their lowest population, cluster around the queen to maintain warmth. They generate heat by consuming the honey stored throughout the year. Bees in the center of the cluster maintain a temperature of around 90°F. If the temperature drops below 57°F, they become immobile and face starvation or freezing, even if honey is nearby.
• Late Winter: If the colony has survived to this point, they begin to raise brood, gradually increasing production as spring approaches. The colony aims to have a robust worker population ready to forage for new food supplies as soon as the weather warms.

The Bee’s World Beyond the Hive

While life within the hive offers relative comfort and safety, the bees occasionally venture beyond its confines for essential reasons. Despite their preference for hive life, bees have a few compelling motivations for leaving their home.

Queen’s Flights and Mating As previously discussed, the queen bee embarks on a few flights early in her life, primarily for orientation and mating purposes. Drones, too, frequently leave the hive for mating flights. These flights serve a vital role in the honey bee’s reproductive cycle.

Worker Bees: Foraging

One of the primary reasons worker bees leave the hive is foraging. Foraging involves the collection of vital materials from the external environment and is typically performed by worker bees in the later stages of their lives.

• A foraging bee can travel up to 5 miles on a single foraging trip, although she prefers to stay closer to the hive whenever possible. In fact, most foragers remain within a two-mile radius of the hive, and a substantial majority of flights are limited to half a mile or less.
• Bees exhibit remarkable efficiency when foraging. They carefully evaluate whether it’s worthwhile to travel a longer distance to reach a promising food source. If a bee becomes fatigued during her journey, she may need to consume some of the nectar she has collected, which can be detrimental to her foraging efforts.
• Honey bees are considered foraging generalists, meaning they can gather nectar and pollen from a wide variety of flowers. Unlike some specialized pollinators, honey bees collect resources from various flower species.
• Despite their adaptability, honey bees tend to focus on a single flower species during any given flight. This specialization is critical for effective pollination, as a bee can visit up to 40 flowers per minute.
• Honey bees rely on a range of senses to locate resources. While their vision in visible light is limited, they excel at detecting ultraviolet light, allowing them to navigate even on cloudy days. Their keen sense of smell, 40 times superior to that of humans, helps them identify food sources, while their ability to taste minute sugar concentrations guides their foraging efforts. Additionally, they are highly attuned to time, using the sun’s position in the sky to orient themselves.
• During nectar collection, a bee employs her proboscis, similar to sipping soda through a straw, to gather and store nectar in a pouch called a nectar sac located in her throat. This sac can account for up to 90% of the bee’s weight. Once collected, the nectar is transported back to the hive, where it is shared among bees and ultimately stored in cells to create honey.
• In contrast, pollen collection involves brushing against the anthers of flowers to collect the powdery pollen. Bees use all three pairs of legs to brush the pollen onto their bodies, mixing it with a bit of nectar for cohesion. The pollen is then packed into specialized pouches on the bee’s back legs, known as pollen baskets, giving the bee a distinctive, bulging appearance. This collected pollen is later stored in the hive’s cells and mixed with honey to form “bee bread,” a crucial food source for the developing brood.

Absconding: When the Entire Colony Decides to Leave

While foraging is a necessary and routine activity for bees, absconding is an entirely different phenomenon, often concerning beekeepers. Absconding occurs when all the bees in a colony decide to leave their hive without any intention of returning. Unlike swarming, which involves a portion of the colony relocating while leaving many bees behind, absconding entails the complete departure of the colony.

Absconding is a rare but worrisome event for beekeepers, as it signifies that the bees are dissatisfied with their hive’s conditions. Bees are inherently focused on their own well-being rather than the beekeeper’s interests. If they determine that their current hive environment is unsuitable, they will depart for better prospects.

Several factors may contribute to the likelihood of absconding, particularly in newly established colonies. Bees in young colonies are still adjusting to their new surroundings, and the hive itself may pose a challenge. New wooden equipment, plastic, or freshly painted hives can emit strong odors that bees find unfamiliar. Bees have a preference for used hives that carry the scent of prior inhabitants. Using Tung Oil treatment is a proven method that bees readily accept and can help eliminate new-hive odors.

To mitigate absconding risk, beekeepers can take proactive measures when introducing new equipment. Allowing hive components to air out for several days before installation can help dissipate the new-hive smell. Moreover, avoiding the painting of hive interiors can prevent overwhelming odors for the bees. Cedar beehives, which do not require painting, are advantageous as they offer a familiar and comfortable environment for bees.

Another aspect that may trigger absconding is disturbance, especially in the initial stages of colony establishment. Young colonies lack the defensive capabilities of older ones and have fewer resources invested in the hive. Consequently, excessive hive inspections or disturbances can prompt the colony to leave. Beekeepers should exercise caution when opening the hive during the first few days after installation.

Similarly, minimizing loud noises near the hive, particularly in the initial days, is advisable. Loud disturbances, such as running a lawnmower or weed-whacker close to the hive, may lead the bees to perceive external threats as the norm, making them less inclined to remain.

Facilitating the colony’s early establishment can foster their loyalty to the hive. Introducing frames with established comb can expedite brood production and resource storage. These frames also introduce the familiar scent of “home” to the colony. Additionally, providing sugar syrup as a supplementary food source in the early stages of hive establishment can encourage bees to work diligently. Abundant food resources and progress in hive construction create a sense of belonging and security for the colony.

Bees may also take issue with specific hive locations. Bees prefer cooler hive environments in summer, and hives exposed to intense afternoon sun may become excessively warm, causing discomfort. Objects obstructing the hive entrance can disrupt flight paths, causing confusion among foragers.

Intruding animals, such as pests or predators, can trigger unease among bees. Elevating the hive on a platform can deter critters from entering. Beekeepers should exercise caution when making changes to the hive surroundings, as even established colonies can be sensitive to environmental alterations. These considerations can help maintain colony contentment and reduce the likelihood of absconding.

Hive Materials: The Essentials Produced by Bees

The Bee’s Three Major Products: Honey, Wax, and Propolis

When we think of the products of bees, three major materials come to mind: honey, wax, and propolis. While honey and wax are relatively well-known, propolis is a lesser-known but equally significant substance. Each of these materials plays a vital role in the construction, sustenance, and maintenance of the hive.

The Building Blocks of the Hive

Wax is a foundational element within the hive, serving as the primary construction material for various hive components. In the wild, honey bee colonies often establish themselves in tree hollows, where they create their intricate hive structures entirely from beeswax.

• Combs, a critical component of the hive, are primarily constructed from wax. These combs consist of a series of hexagonal cells interlocking with one another. Within these cells, bees raise brood and store both honey and pollen.
• Worker bees possess specialized glands on their bodies that produce tiny flecks of wax. The optimal period for wax production is between 16 and 18 days of age, as the glands’ effectiveness diminishes with age. While this timeframe may appear short, it aligns well with the bee’s average lifespan of approximately one month.
• The process of wax production involves a bee consuming honey and converting its sugars into wax. The wax emerges as clear flakes through pores on the bee’s sides. Subsequently, the bee, or a nearby companion, chews the wax, mixing it with saliva to render it malleable. The bee then adds this small portion of wax to the comb before repeating the cycle.
• Notably, it takes around six pounds of honey to yield a single pound of wax, highlighting the significant energy investment required for wax production.

Honey: The Bee’s Essential Food Reserve

Honey serves as the bee colony’s essential food reserve, particularly during the winter months when foraging becomes challenging due to cold temperatures. Bees amass substantial quantities of honey to sustain themselves when outdoor foraging is impractical.

• A colony typically requires approximately 25 to 30 pounds of honey to endure an average winter. In regions with harsher winters, this requirement can increase significantly. However, bees tend to stockpile honey if space allows, with productive colonies capable of amassing up to 100 pounds of honey in a single season.
• Considering the tiny size of individual bees, amassing a pound of honey is a monumental achievement. It necessitates an astonishing 55,000 miles of flight collectively foraging for nectar, underscoring the power of collective effort in honey production.
• Honey production commences when a worker bee gathers nectar from flowers using her proboscis, storing it in a nectar sac within her throat. En route to the hive, the bee mixes the nectar with enzymes in her saliva. Upon her return to the hive, she transfers the nectar by mouth to a housekeeping worker bee.
• Ripening, a critical phase in honey production, involves reducing the nectar’s water content. Bees accomplish this by transferring the nectar between their nectar sac and proboscis for 15-20 minutes, allowing exposure to air to promote water evaporation. The nectar is successively passed between bees, progressively enhancing its richness.
• The extent of ripening can vary based on external nectar flow conditions. In periods of limited nectar availability, bees prioritize nectar concentration and pass it among themselves multiple times. In contrast, during abundant nectar flow or space constraints, the process may be expedited, and honey is stored in cells.
• Honey matures in the cell over several days to further reduce its water content to around 18%. During this time, bees cap the cell with a layer of wax to prevent additional evaporation and protect the stored honey.

Propolis: The Hive’s Natural Caulk

Propolis, often referred to as “bee glue,” is a lesser-known but crucial material within the hive. Comprising approximately 50% tree resin, propolis serves various functions within the hive, including structural reinforcement and sanitation.

• When foraging, bees sometimes collect resin or sap from trees rather than visiting flowers. This resin is gathered on their hind legs in a manner akin to pollen collection. Once returned to the hive, the resin is blended with wax, pollen, oils, and over a hundred other compounds to produce propolis.
• Propolis is incredibly adhesive and never fully hardens due to its high resin content. Bees use it to seal small openings, insulate the hive, and strengthen hive structures.
• Any space within the hive smaller than a centimeter is considered too small for comb construction and is filled with propolis, creating an almost solid barrier that enhances insulation and keeps out the cold.
• Bees use propolis to modify the hive’s shape, such as closing off wide entrances or smoothing rough surfaces. It can also serve as an emergency patch material for the hive, and bees may store up to a pound of propolis for this purpose.
• Propolis essentially acts as a versatile filler within the hive. If it’s not made of wax in the hive, it’s likely composed of propolis. It is a key contributor to hive structure, durability, and hygiene.

These three materials—wax, honey, and propolis—play integral roles in the hive, serving as building blocks, sustenance, and essential hive maintenance materials for the honey bee colony.

Conclusion

This article delves deep into the intricate workings of honey bee colonies, shedding light on their social structure, division of labor, and the remarkable contributions of each bee type. It highlights the critical roles of worker bees, the unique life of the queen bee, and the significance of drones and pheromones in bee communication. Furthermore, it explains the seasonal activities of bees, their foraging habits, and the intriguing dance of the foragers. The article also discusses the reasons behind absconding and the essential hive materials produced by bees. Overall, it offers a comprehensive understanding of the world inside and outside the beehive, making it a valuable resource for beekeepers and enthusiasts alike.