Dan Greenwood 
Bees live together in a colony with a very specific social structure. While the female worker bees are food providers, the male worker bees — drones — are there to mate with the queen bee. She’s the one single bee, without whom the colony couldn’t exist.
Different bee species can collect a different amount of pollen in one trip. They also need a different amount of pollen in their hive. To harvest enough protein-rich food for one baby bee, the passionflower bee will make around 35 foraging trips. A spring mining bee will fly out just seven times, though.
Harvesting honey is one of the most important and lucrative moments for a beekeeper. The age and health of your beehive will influence how long it takes your bees to produce honey. You have to know the cycle of your beehive, the signs of a honey flow and the best practices so you can harvest properly.
The beehive caste system places the queen bee at the center of everything. She controls the thousands of worker and drone bees with her pheromones and her ability to reproduce.
A queen bee is easily distinguishable from the rest of the bees. She differs in shape, size and color. She also has other distinct characteristics that make identifying her easy. However, if you’re new to beekeeping, the first couple of times might be hard. Trying to find one special bee within thousands in one hive requires some training if there isn’t an excluder already in the hive.
Bees are an essential part of our environment. Whether the word “bee” makes you think of honey or the pain of being stung, you should do your best to help bees.
It isn’t second nature for us to know how to help a bee. With simple knowledge to hand, though, you could make a big difference to bee welfare with the below information.
Let’s face it! Honey is, without any doubt, a great health food with many benefits. Many times, however, people tend to focus on improving honey production, but they forget to take care of the producer as well. Honey is good, but bees are also extremely important.
In a beehive, everything revolves around the queen bee. She’s the most vital member of the entire colony because she’s the only fertile female. She’s not only the queen but the mother of all the bees.
Worker bees and drone bees serve different roles in the bee caste system. However, the queen bee is central in ruling over all of them. So, what happens when the queen bee – the most vital member of the colony – dies? There are different courses of action the colony will take, depending on how the queen died.
Often referred to as the “nuke,” or “nuc,” the “nuclear” beehive is a small colony of bees plus a queen. It has all of the essentials for creating a new colony, just like the cell nucleus is the start of a healthy molecule. For seasoned beekeepers, a bee nuc is like a secret weapon. Primarily, beekeepers use a nucleus to start a new colony.
As beekeeping grows and the production of your own honey becomes more attractive, more and more outlets are appearing. But, how do you know exactly what you need and what should you be looking out for?
That’s where we come in. Did you know there are different varieties of honeybees? Are you looking to buy a bee package or a bee nuc? These are some of the options you should consider before you decide where to buy honeybees from.
That jar of honey on your shelf seems to have been there for ages without going bad. Yeah, it has a very long shelf life — but does honey go bad? Well, some claim that honey lasts forever and doesn’t spoil. Others say it depends on how it’s stored.
The truth is, honey can go bad if stored improperly. However, under the right conditions, honey can last for decades and even centuries. It’s a magical natural sweetener!