Bee Keeping

Bee Foraging Behaviour

Wow, I found this fascinating! Bees are for sure a lot smarter then I anticipated with languages, internal clocks, solar compasses and odometers built right in. I was shocked especially about the bee language.  I never really knew how bees communicated with each other and to learn that they not only make special noises but also understand “numbers” and direction was incredible.  The “internal clock” bees possess was also surprising to me. I would be interested (along with a lot of scientists) to know how this really works.  It seems like higher level thinking to be able to compensate for the movement of the sun in relation to the time, I think some humans would have a bit of trouble with that.  Next time I go into the hives I will certainly be looking for some “bee dancing”. I also want to know more about the great migration bees take! I really felt like that video left us at a cliff hanger.

Harvesting the hard way

OH MY! I was extremely nervous for Tete! Although I really liked that video I am still a little concerned about how he got back down….

 Other Hive Designs

I thought that the Top Bar Hives were really beautiful. I liked how they were so simplistic. I thought it was amazing how the combs fall from the bars in such a beautiful and interesting ways. Definitely some inspiration for some sketchbook pages there.  However, as a clumsy person I can see myself being faced with disaster when having to extract the bars so carefully. I was surprised to learn that the Greeks had Top Bar Hives hundreds of years ago and that the proper ratio between bars is 1 and 3/8s of an inch. My dad will absolutely be interested in building a Top Bar Hive and I plan to find out more about their construction, although they don’t look too difficult (famous last words). I personally thing that the Langstroth Hives are more affective because they offer more support to the combs as well as better ventilation. After seeing the pictures of the Greek hives I wondered what difference in design may exist in other bee-keeping areas of the world.

Langstroth Hive Design 

I saw the video for this reading but it looks like im going to have to get a copy of “The Bee Keepers Handbook”! I am completely new to everything about bees so this video was a lot of information. I learned that the place where the queen lays the eggs is called the Brood Chamber (which makes sense), the bees always store the honey in the boxes above the eggs and that the bottom screen is for collecting mites. I had quite a few questions about the structure after watching this video; mostly questions about how they were first invented. So I did some more research on Langstroth Hives and I feel like I pretty much understand how they work now.

Bee Lifecycle

I grew up on Microcosmos so I’ve watched the life cycle of a bee a few times but I never really had a grasp on the times. It seems to be pretty quick considering the massive changes taking place. I was astonished that a bee born in the winter lives so much longer than one in the summer! I thought the different “bee food” was really interesting for example bee bread and royal jelly. I have heard of Royal Jelly before and lots of lip balms and heath stores sell it but I wasn’t aware that it was formed in the head glands of worker bees! Yikes. I was wondering if we would be able to see royal jelly one day?

Bee Yard Safety

I thought it was really interesting that what you ate affected the bees so much. It was also surprising to me that bees are so sensitive to your emotions! For example if you’re stressed or shaky from being hungry. I have only been stung once and used vinegar to take the pain away but I thought it was cool there was so many other ways to take away the sting. I was wondering why the man in the video didn’t get stung when he handled the bees and if they can get to know you better so they won’t sting you.  It said in the reading that bees don’t like black, I wondered if they were responsive to other colors? I think for my first time I’ll stick to white just to be on the safe side. I’m a little bit nervous about going to tend to the bees for the first time but I will take ALL the safety precautions and see how it goes.