Hatton Bees - Kirkliston

My bees

Meet my bees, over the next few weeks I will add a few photos of my bees.

At this time my hive contains about 30,000 bees most of which are the female workers about 150 drones which are the male bees and of course 1 Queen.

My Queen who is a last years queen is expected to live for 3-4 years and will lay between 1500 and 3000 eggs per day but as she gets older this number will start to decrease, when this starts to happen either I will replace her with a new queen or the bees will do this themselves (this is known as Queen supersedure, you can read more on that on another page of this site).

As winter approaches her egg laying starts to slow down and stops altogether over the winter months when all the other bees in the hive cluster together around the queen in order to keep her warm.

As winter arrives the workers bite off the wings of the drones and physically kick them out the hive to starve or freeze to death.

The wings are bitten off just to be sure the Drones don't re-enter the hive once they have been kicked out.

I can just about hear all the female readers shouting "YES" and the male readers muttering "Oh NO".

This sounds harsh but drones don't contribute anything to the hive and would only use valuable resources the workers and queen might need in order to survive the winter months.

The only reason a drone is needed is to mate with a virgin princess in order to allow her to become a egg laying queen who is then mated for life and never need the services of a drone again in her lifetime. The queen will mate with between 10 and 15 drones in an area where the drones hang about in the hope they might find a queen to mate with.

If a drone does find a queen to mate with then he is in for a shock, once mating is over and he tries to fly away his penis is ripped from his body as it is like a stinger and has barbs on it and he falls to his death as mating takes place mid-flight 300 - 400 ft in the air.

Given that a queen is then mated for life the need for a drone to mate with a new queen is a rare occurrence so the drone's are surplice to requirements once the hive has a egg laying queen. Drones are allowed to stay in the hive over the honey season on the off chance the queen dies and the hive needs to rear another in a hurry.

New drones will be among the first eggs the queen lays when she starts to lay again in the spring the following year.

Meet my bees Meet my bees, the larger bee with the red spot on it's neck is my Queen. The spot lets the beekeeper know the age of the queen and also helps the beekeeper find the queen amongst the 1000's of other bees in the hive.		The queen The Queen bee is the most important bee in the hive, without a queen the hive will eventually die. A queen can live about 4 years and during this time March - October she will lay about 1,500 eggs per day. Any worker bee can become a queen if chosen when the existing queen dies providing she is chosen before she is 3 days old. This is because all bees during the first 3 days of their lives are fed the substance known as Royal Jelly after the 3rd day if not chosen to become a queen they are then fed a less rich food. If chosen to become a queen then you will continue to be fed Royal Jelly the rest of your life. Although the queen has a stinger it only ever uses this to fight and kill any other queens it finds in the hive. If a queen did sting you it would not die as unlike worker bees its stinger is smooth.

Nursery bees During the first few days after a worker bee emerges she is given the task of feeding the larva of other just hatched from the egg bees. Each bee larva can be turned, cleaned and checked about 3,000 times a day until it sealed in its cell until it emerges 21 days later as a new adult bee.		Turning Nectar into Honey. In order for nectar to successfully be transformed into honey the worker bees eat the nectar and enzymes in the workers honey stomach help transform this into honey. Honey Bees are the only insect that produces food that we can eat.

Returning home. My bees returning to my hive after a long day out in the fields collecting lots of nectar so they can turn this into yummy honey.		It's a hard life It's a hard life. Here we see a worker using her wings to fan the honey to help reduce the water content in it. The water content in the honey needs to be reduced down to around the 18% level in order that it does not spoil. Honey has been found inside the Pyramids which is still edible.

Busy bee, busy bee, busy little bee. The worker bee works from the moment she emerges until the moment she dies, she literally work themselves to death. A worker bee during the spring - autumn lives only about 6 weeks whereas during the winter months when they are inactive can live 4 - 5 months.		A Drone (male bee) emerging Here we see a Drone emerging from his Drone Cell. The Drone or male bee are only tolerated in the hive in the event the queen dies as the new virgin queen needs to be mated in order to become a egg laying queen. A hive only has about 150 -200 drones during the spring - summertime. This is the sole contribution the drone makes to the colony, they can't even feed themselves or defend the hive as they have no stinger. The worker bees bite off the wings of the drones in the autumn and push them out the hive to die rather than allow them to be fed valuable honey over the winter. New drones will hatch the following spring.

Meet Mary 157 Here we have a single worker bee who will visit about 50,000 flowers in her lifetime which will in turn make about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. I've jokingly called her Mary 157 and since this photo was taken about 2 months ago, sadly Mary 157 will already have died.