Why Bees? Why indeed? Most people think of the nasty wasps that really play no role in pollination whatsoever, that sting you and it hurts like the dickens! Not to say that wasps don’t collect pollen in their little “pollen basket”, and studies have shown that even though they are not exactly warm and fuzzy, they do have a hand in pollinating some plants. Besides, Wasps do eat pollen and nectar. There are over 140 different species of “Bee Wolves” that hunt our warm and fuzzy friends, the Honey Bees. The little buggers will go into a honey bee hive, drop off their kids and leave it to the honey bees to feed and care for them until they grow up.
Now, I’m sorry, but if someone dropped off a kid that wasn’t mine? Don’t you think you’d notice? I don’t know. That is a question for another day because life in a honey bee hive is rather organized. Everyone has a job and well, lets face it, if you don’t do it? You’d get kicked out. No, really seriously. They would boot your butt right out of that hive.
You see, the colony (that’s what its called by the way) houses One Queen Bee, (Not Beyonce) and seasonally a few thousand drones (or fertile males) and tens of thousand of female worker bees. The women of the hive are not slaves just because they are the worker bees, they are just better at doing their job then the boys. The boys go out and forage for food, while the women of the hive take care of the inner workings.
After the Queen Bee takes her “Mating Flight” (or maiden flight), she hooks up with several different drones from other hives. She won’t mate with anyone from her hive due to her super powers of “Kin Recognition”. She’ll say. “Whoa Dude! You’re my third cousin on Aunt Hilda’s side. Sorry.” And leaves him with the bar tab. Once she returns, she lays her eggs in the honey comb and then decides which ones will be fertilized, and which one will become queen.
Once she chooses her princesses, they will be fed “Royal Jelly” which is produced by the young nurse bees. The nurse bees care for them until they grow up and hatch into either drones, nurses or a queen bee. The nurses are just that, nurses. They clean the hive, care for the young and handle other types of tasks. Once their royal jelly glands dry up, they transition to foragers where they live out their life flying around collecting food.
Now, the boys, unfortunately, don’t have such a happy ending. They are collectively evicted come round October. The nurse bees stop feeding them, they grow weak and then booted out of the hive to be eaten by birds or some other creature. Over the winter, the hive slows down, feeds on their stores so that the following spring, it starts all over again.
So, the question remains, why bees? What do they do for us that we can’t do for ourselves? I guess you’ll have to read the next article to find out. Thanks for reading!
Bee Proactive 