Bee-Dazzled Presentation Notes EEA Conference 2012 Life Cycle of a Honeybee Honeybees go through complete metamorphosis (egg � larvae � pupa � adult). The length of time for a bee to complete metamorphosis is based on whether the bee will be a female worker, queen or drone. The life cycle of a female worker bee: A small larva hatches from the egg after about three days. The larva grows at a fast rate – in six days its size increases 500 times. They eat a lot to support this growth - each larva bee receives an estimated 10,000 meals during the eight or nine days of its egg and larval stages, with a snack required every few minutes. The first three days of its larva stage, the larva is fed royal jelly (a protein rich substance from special glands) and then after the first three days the larva only receives a pollen and honey mixture called bee bread. Queen bees are fed royal jelly throughout their development. The larva stage for a female worker lasts approximately 6 days. When the larva is fully developed, the workers cap the cell and the larva changes into a pupa. This stage lasts approximately 12 days. When the adult bee emerges from the pupa stage, it begins working right away by cleaning its cell. From egg to adult worker the process is approximately 21 days. For a queen it is 16 days and for a drone it is 24 days. Honeybee Hive Organization Drones: males of the hive whose main job is to find queens to mate with. After they mate with a queen, they die. Queen: The queen’s main function is to lay eggs. In one day a queen can lay her weight in eggs. She will lay one egg per minute, day and night, for a total of 1,500 eggs over a 24-hour period and 200,000 eggs in a year. She also puts out a pheromone or particular smell letting all the bees know that all is good. As she ages, she starts laying less eggs and her pheromone decreases in strength. That stimulates the worker bees to create queen cups and start rearing a new queen. Workers: Female bees that do various jobs during their lives – clean, nurse larva, build honey comb, defend the hive from predators and forage for pollen, nectar and pollen. Amazing Honeybee Stats o In the average lifetime of a worker bee, her various hive duties add up to 500 miles of flight. When nectar is abundant, the inhabitants of a colony will collectively fly 55,000 miles and gather from more than two million flowers to make a pound of honey, with each bee contributing in total a teaspoon to the communal coffer in her lifetime. o One hive can make about 150 lbs of honey in one season. It takes about 1/3 of that honey to sustain them through the winter months. o Honeybee pollination adds $15 – 20 billion a year to agriculture output of the Unites States. They pollinate the fruit and the nuts we eat but also the clover and alfalfa that the cows eat. Haggen Daz claims that 40% of the ingredients in its ice cream flavors are dependent on honeybees.
o Approximately 50,000 shipments of pollen are brought back to the hive each day. Every year, a strong colony rears about 200,000 bees, nurtured by millions of tiny pollen loaves, or up to 75 lbs of pollen. o It takes 5 gallons of water to hydrate the hive through the course of a year – those gallons of water are collected a drop at a time by worker bees. o Insect stings are responsible for 50 – 100 deaths in the United States each year (only half of those come from honeybees). Compare that to 400 deaths from “slips and falls while walking”. Aesop’s Fable: The Bee and Jupiter A queen bee from Hymettus flew up to Olympus with some fresh honey from the hive as a present to Jupiter, who was so pleased with the gift that he promised to give her anything she liked to ask for. She said she would be very grateful if he would give stings to the bees, to kill people who robbed them of their honey. Jupiter was greatly displeased with this request, for he loved mankind: but he had given his word, so he said that stings they should have. The stings he gave them, however, were of such a kind that whenever a bee stings a man the sting is left in the wound and the bee dies. Native Bees Approximately 4,000 species of native bee have been identified and catalogued with various behaviors, shapes and colors. Bumblebee o Bumble bees are the only bees native to the US that are truly social. They are ground nesters and live in colonies, share the work, and have multiple, overlapping generations throughout the spring, summer, and fall. However, unlike the non-native, European honey bees, the bumble bee colony is seasonal. At the end of the fall only the fertilized queens survive to hibernate through the winter. In the spring, she will create a new nest that eventually may grow to include dozens of individuals. o In the spring, the surviving queen creates the first few brood cells from wax, and then provisions them with pollen and nectar and lays eggs. It will take about a month for her to raise the first brood. When they emerge, these bees become workers, taking on the tasks of foraging and helping the queen tend the growing number of brood cells. The queen no longer leaves the nest after the first round of workers become adults. The workers may live for a couple of months, by which time there will be more bumble bees to replace them. The queen will continue to lay eggs, so the colony will grow steadily through the summer. At the end of summer, new queens and drones will emerge and mate. As the cooler weather of fall arrives most of the bees, including the old queen, will die, leaving only the new, mated queens to overwinter. o New queens and males leave the colony after maturation. Males in particular are forcibly driven out by the workers. Away from the colony, the new queens and males live off nectar and pollen and spend the night on flowers or in holes. o Bumble bees also differ from solitary bees when feeding their larvae. They provide food gradually, adding it to the brood cells as the larvae need it (“progressive provisioning”) rather than leaving all the food in the cell before laying the egg. In addition, bumble bees make a small amount of honey, just enough to feed the larvae and themselves for a couple of days during bad weather.
Carpenter Bees o The differences between a bumble bee and carpenter bees: bumble bees are fuzzy all over, while the upper abdomen of carpenter bees is almost hairless and appears glossy. o Early in the spring, males prospect for promising courtship and mating sites, not because they plan to set up housekeeping, but because they know that such places will attract females. They patrol the territory zealously chasing away other males that venture too close. In fact, sometimes they chase away almost anything that moves, including surprised human gardeners. Fortunately, they cannot sting (only females have stingers), so there is nothing to fear. o Carpenter bees are traditionally considered solitary bees, though some species have simple social nests in which mothers and daughters may cohabit. However, even solitary species tend to be gregarious, and often several will nest near each other. It has been occasionally reported that when females cohabit, there may be a division of labor between them o Carpenter bees make nests by tunneling into wood, vibrating their bodies as they rasp their mandibles against the wood, each nest having a single entrance which may have many adjacent tunnels. Carpenter bees do not eat wood.\ Threats to Native Bees o Spread of pests and diseases o Commercial bumble bee rearing o Habitat destruction or alteration, o Pesticides o Invasive species o Climate change Bee Activities o Bee Dress-up o Waggle Dance o Bee Games o Pollination Relay Race o Pollination Observation o Create a bee house for native bees (http://www.pollinator.org/beekeeping.htm) o Plant pollinator friendly plants and watch the magic unfold! (http://www.pollinator.org/guides.htm) o Bees Wax Candles o Honey tasting o Lip Balm Recipe 1⁄2 ounce beeswax 1 teaspoon honey 4 ounces olive oil Mint extract to taste (about 20 drops), optional In small double boiler, melt beeswax. Once melted, add honey and oil, and stir for 1 to 2 minutes. Add extract and stir well. (Be aware that the honey will not fully mix with the oil because of the water content, but it’s a good healing agent for the skin.) Pour heated mixture into a small glass container or beaker, then distribute into lip balm tins or tubes.
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