Bee Knowledgeable Questions: Defense

Bees are very well known for their defensive abilities. When asked what bees can do, one of the most popular answers we hear is: "Bees can sting you!"
Think about the following questions and see what kinds of answers you can find this week.

1) Why do bees sting?

2) What happens when a bee stings?

3) List some other animals and their defensive behaviors.

Have You Heard the Buzz?

The Boojum Bees have been all over Southern California this year!

Our little bee friends have made their appearance in several classrooms to the delight and fascination of all the students (and teachers, too!).

The Boojum Bees had their first "in the field" visit to an exuberant group of seventh grade environmental students in Joshua Tree National Park.

photo: Megan Beckett

These students were part of the California Regional Environmental Education Community, or CREEC. The students learned about the vitally important roles bees (and all pollinating animals) play in our ecosystem. We discussed how very crucial the bees are to our environment and to our human survival on this planet.

Our buzzing buddies next visited Westwood Charter School in Los Angeles. Five classes of 1st and 2nd grade students learned all about bees and their importance to our farms and food supply.

photo: Robyn Young

The Westwood Charter students got to participate in the waggle dance game, as well as touch and smell real honeycomb and queen cells.

Next the Boojum Bees will make their appearance for the kindergartners at Vintage Hills Elementary in Temecula, and many more schools are being visited in May!

At The Boojum Beeyard: April

The Boojum bees are healthy and growing! The two new swarms that were hived last month have taken to their new homes and are thriving. That brings the beeyard total to four colonies!

photo: Robyn Young

After hiving the last swarm, a pollen patty was placed on top of the frames to help feed the colony until they could get their own pollen stores flowing. The bees started building comb from the bottom of the pollen patty:

photo: Robyn Young

photo: Robyn Young

Almost all the local flowers are blooming and that means the nectar flow is on!

Next we will be adding "honey supers" on to the strongest colonies. Honey supers are shallow hive boxes placed on top of the "deep", or full-sized hive body. Shorter sized frames go into the honey super.

Generally, the bees like to put their honeycomb above their brood. So by adding these honey supers, the bees have a convenient place to start packing in the honey. And we beekeepers have a smaller (and lighter weight) box to move when it comes time to harvest some of that delicious honey.

Bee Knowledgeable Answers: Swarming

What do you think a swarm of bees are? Why does a colony swarm?

Swarming is a natural way for bees to split their colony and reproduce.  When a colony of bees gets too large for its hive, usually in Spring to early Summer, the colony will decide to swarm. The workers will start rearing new queens in queen cells. The old queen will leave the hive behind, taking some drones and half her workers with her. Swarms can have 1500 to 30,000 bees!

Queens lay thousands of eggs in a day and colonies can build to greater and greater numbers very quickly when lots of food sources are available. The bees can reach a point that the hive is too crowded. It becomes harder for the workers to maintain the proper hive temperature. The bees will decide it is time to swarm.

The swarm leaves the hive and begins searching for a new home. Swarms will temporarily rest in the strangest of places. They’ll hang from a tree or hang off the back of a lounge chair, or just about anywhere.  While the swarm is resting, scout bees will venture out to search for a new home. The swarm may move again in a few hours or a few days, but it will keep moving until the bees have found the right place.

Swarms of bees are less likely to sting than established colonies. A swarm has no brood or stores of food yet to defend. Bees sting to defend their homes, their babies, their food, and each other. Left alone, a swarm shouldn’t bother anyone.

Eventually the scout bees will return successful and tell the swarm where the new possible is located by doing the waggle dance. The swarm then goes and inspects the new hive location. The swarm will decide whether the location is suitable or not. If it is not, they will keep traveling and looking. If the location is right for a good hive, the bees will start emitting a “home pheromone” which has a lemony smell.

Immediately worker bees will start cleaning and building new comb. They will even ‘measure’ the space by forming chains of bees from one side of the space to the other. The swarm has settled into their new home and is now considered a colony with a hive of their own.

What has happened to the original hive, you ask. They have no queen anymore and half their workers have left! Well, the worker bees left behind will move eggs into larger than normal sized cells, called queen cells. They look very much like a peanut. When that egg hatches, it will be fed only a very special diet of royal jelly. Royal jelly is a special substance made only by the nurse bees who take care of the brood, or baby bees.

Being fed only royal jelly during her development, the larva will pupate and a queen bee will hatch. Usually the bees have moved several eggs into queen cells and so have several queens developing at once.

The queen that hatches first will find the other queen cells and sting the other queens through the walls of their cells. If more than one queen bee hatches at the same time, the queens will fight to the death. The strongest queen will survive to be the mother of the colony.

So swarming is the way a bee colony makes a brand new bee colony. It is a completely natural process. Healthy colonies can even swarm several times during a season.

If you see a swarm, it is best to just leave it alone. It will move on, either within hours or a few days. Otherwise, call a local beekeeper to remove and relocate it.

So what does a swarm of bees look like? What do bee hives look like if the bees are wild and not kept in beekeeper’s hive boxes? Take a look at these photos to see for yourself!

Here is a swarm of bees in an oak tree:

photo: sandersj89

Here are a couple of photos showing some comb that swarm of bees were busy working on:

photos: sandersj89



Here is comb being built by swarms establishing a hive: 

photo: GoldenDropsFarm.com

photo: Reed Booth

And look at this wild hive built by bees:

 

photo: Geoff Kipps-Bolton

Bee Knowledgeable Questions: Swarming

It’s Swarm Season!

Spring is officially here in the northern hemisphere of the world, and nature is waking up from winter’s cold. All the plants and animals that have been hibernating or have been dormant during the long cold of winter are sending green shoots towards the sun, shaking out their fur, and stretching out wings.

The first flowers of the season have opened their faces to the light and warmth. What does this mean for the bees? It means a fresh source of nectar and pollen. It means the colony is active again and can grow and thrive.

What do you think a swarm of bees are? Why does a colony swarm? See if you can find the answers this week!