‘Bees Are Amazing!’ by Sandy Halstead

Sandy has been a beekeeper for eight years now, and has never lost her enthusiasm for them, in fact it plainly just increases.  She began by explaining that in this country we have the North European bees, which used to include the black bee species, although these have now died out, along with some other previously commonly found species. We need to conserve bees now, their numbers in general are declining and they are amongst the most useful pollinators.

Within a hive, the different types of bees are workers, drones and of course, a queen. At the beginning of the summer season, the hive will increase by 100/day and by July, by 2000/day. In a healthy hive there can be anything from 20,000 to 80,000 bees and a single queen will be the sole egg layer. Royal jelly, which is a nutrient rich solution derived from propolis, is fed to the queen and the larvae by the workers although the queen will only ever be fed this for her life. Queen cells are not made in the same way as the worker and drone cells (which are hexagonal), they are larger and hang generally at the bottom of a frame. When the queen emerges, she will have a stinger and, if she should need to use it, will not die as the other bees do. If more than one queen emerges from the hive they will fight until one of them dies.

Drones are male bees and they do no work and expect to be fed by the female worker bees. Their only job is to  mate with a virgin queen, which they do in mid-air during a nuptial flight, and they die shortly after mating. They are bigger than workers, their cells are larger and they cannot sting. Multiple drones will mate with the queen, ensuring the longevity of hive numbers. She will store their sperm in her spermatheca for future use. Whereas the worker bees have specific jobs to do right from the point where they emerge from their cells, drone bees don’t do anything except look out for a passing queen but on mating successfully, will leave their sex organs inside her and die, so it’s not such a happy outcome for him. When the queen has had her mating flight and returns to the hive, she will be cleaned and fed and her egg laying duty will begin within two or three days. She also plays a crucial role in regulating the colony through pheromones, which will determine the temperament of the bees and influences social behaviour. 

The workers will emerge from their cells after nine days and their first job will be to clean their cell, ready for re-use. The process of growth will take approximately 21 days from the egg, which grows  into a larva then a pupa and finally an adult. They will then for two or three days be employed in housekeeping duties, after which they will be a nursery attendant, taking any mess away, then an attendant to the queen. After this a worker will be a wax maker then a guard bee (warding off any possible threats) and finally a honey maker, accepting nectar from foragers, putting it in a cell and capping it off. After this the honey will never deteriorate. Foragers will collect pollen, water, nectar and propolis which comes from trees and they will carry in the collected pollen on their legs. 

Foragers will communicate sources of food by doing a “waggle dance” which the other bees can interpret as to how far, which direction etc. 

Swarming of bees from the hive is a natural solution to make another colony, which is likely to be if the hive is overcrowded and there is an abundance of food. .A new queen will have been made and the old queen will take a proportion of the bees off to find another home; scout bees will be sent off to look – it could be in a tree initially and then they’ll find a small opening somewhere, with accessible water nearby, maybe in a wall where they can establish another hive and start to make wax for the new cells. The new queen will remain in the original hive. 

Worker bees will look constantly for sources of forage, starting in January with snowdrops and making the most of tree pollen. The bees will put different types of pollen of diverse colours in each cell. 

Sandy finished by answering questions on bees:

• There is a good amount of reading on the subject available; also there is a novel “The Bee” which was recommended by one member of the audience.
• Life span of bees – winter bees will live for around 6 months but in the summer, because of the workload, bees will only last 6 to 8 weeks. 
• Construction of hives – generally they are made from cedar wood because it weathers well, but there are now polystyrene hives, which are warmer.
• Wasps – will construct their own nests or nest in a hole in the ground, excavating quite large amounts of soil.
• Catching a swarm – can be done more easily if they are in a tree, ideally the queen is caught first so that the rest of the bees will follow.

Sandy was thanked for a very interesting talk and slide show, which everyone enjoyed and which sparked quite a bit of discussion afterwards. 

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Following the AGM in February, Cothi Gardeners’ Club has a new Committee:

Chair	Tracey Parkin
Treasurer	Rob Usher
Secretary	Carol Cook
Programme Co-ordinator	Carol Carpenter
Website Admin	Sheena Wakefield

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Members: please remember that Sheena welcomes contributions for the website or ideas for new content. You can also view upcoming club talks and external events on the website.

As a reminder, the next talk on 16th April will be ‘Aberglasney: A Calendar Year’ by Nigel McCall. Nigel’s book of the same name will be available for purchase (£20, please bring cash) – it features his beautiful photographs of the gardens through the seasons, with plant identification by Joseph Atkin (former Head Gardener at Aberglasney). The book’s foreword has been written by Chris Beardshaw. Note that the meeting will start 15 minutes earlier than usual, at 7.15pm.