If I had bee hives right now, they would probably look like this. We are supposed to get about a foot of snow over the next few days. For Charlottesville, this is a big deal as it has not happened here for a long time. If I did have hives right now my mind should be at ease. Hopefully I would have left about 60 pounds of honey or sugar water for food and they were ventilated adequately to prevent a build up of moisture inside the hives.
One question I always get about honeybees is “Do they hibernate?”. Although to the casual observer viewing the hive from the outside it can understandably be thought that the bees simply live off of their fat reserves while in a suspended animation. This is not the case, although if it were, it would make our hobby a little bit easier.
First of all, honeybees do store a type of fat called vitellogenin in their abdomen and head. Vitellogenin is a compound comprised of properties of sugar (glyco, 2%), fat (lipo, 7%), and protein (91%) (Wheeler & Kawooya 2005). However this fat is not used by individual honeybees for energy but for providing nutrition to the eggs and larva within their care. This is another story for another discussion. Lastly honeybees do not hibernate, but simply slow down their production to meet the lack of resources coming around the bend during Winter.
They begin by slowing down their operations during late summer. The queen will begin to taper off the amount of eggs she is laying and the worker bees will begin to throw the seemingly lazy drones out of the hive to starve to death. After all, their services are not needed until late Spring when new queens will begin flying around on their nuptial flight.
As the weather becomes colder the honeybees will contract the size of their cluster to compensate for the cooler temperatures. This contraction process makes it easier for the honeybees to generate and maintain warmer temperatures through shivering their flight muscles to produce heat. However if it gets too cold the bees may contract to the point that their honey stores become out of reach. This can be especially deadly for them if temperatures are constantly cool for long periods of time. Once a honeybee’s internal temperature drops below 48 degrees they are not able to activate their flight muscles to generate heat and will soon die.
One can view the colony’s cluster as an earth like spheroid having a core and an outer mantle layer. Inside the core, the temperatures are at their highest usually between 64-90 degrees Fahrenheit. As one moves towards the surface of the colony cluster, the temperature within the mantle drops to an average range of about 48-57 degrees Fahrenheit. The outer layer becomes an insulation barrier for the core from the cool external temperatures. Throughout the day the honeybees will move between the two layers and access the honey stores near the surface of the the mantle layer, continually providing themselves with new energy sources.
During the winter season, if the honeybees are lucky enough, they may get a day when the temperatures outside the hive rises above 64 degrees Fahrenheit. At this point the honeybees will begin taking cleansing flights. Basically, fly outside the hive to “drop the kids off at the pool”. You know this is happening especially if their is snow outside as you will see flecks of yellow on the surface. This is not pollen but pure Grade A bee “crap”. I am sure someday some snake oil sales man will begin marketing this as a new herbal tea mix that can cure cancer and replace coal for an energy source.
For me it is amazing to see this type of behavior in insects. Millions of years ago, when did this behavior first begin to be employed? One can easily see how this behavior would give honeybees a great advantage over other like insects of the time. They could expand their habitat into cooler regions, giving themselves a wider range to cull for resources. God you have to love evolution!
I just placed my order for three honeybee packages from Bee Weaver apiaries down in Texas. I ordered the BeeWeaver variety. They describe their bees as follows.
“BeeWeaver Queens are a hybrid of our very best All Star and Buckfast and BeeSMaRt colonies. After selecting for mite resistance, high honey production and healthy populations in all our queen lines for over a decade we found our breeds became similar. Our choice to combine the breeds will bring you the best all around bees possible and better customer service. This decision may have been an obvious one to make, but it was not an easy one. We hope as the beekeeping world evolves you will find that our own evolution is the best path to overcome today’s challenges in the world of bees.”
What really caught my attention is this quote:
When a BeeWeaver Queen heads your colony you will be able to throw away those expensive mite treatments as well.
I really hope this will be the case.
It seems only natural that honeybees and godhood be intermixed in casual conversation. Honeybees after all seem to produce honey from thin air while building elegant structures to store it. They assist in the beautification and bounty of gardens around the world providing us with tasty treats for both palate and eye. It is no wonder that humans have mythologized gods to create them but also to be their guardian’s and protectors.
We know beekeeping is a very old profession, probably far older than the ones found in red-light districts.
In Valencia , Spain in the Cave of the Spider (Cueve de la Arana) situated on the river Cazunta a pre-historic drawing estimated to be about 8,000 years old was discovered showing a human figure robbing bees of their honey from a cave entrance. 
Although this is technically not “beekeeping” it demonstrates the first known effort by humans to harvest honey from a colony using a systematic approach.
Vines were dropped over the cliff edge, the honey gatherer climbed down with a satchel and proceeds to rob the bees of their honey comb and nutritious larva. It is very likely that these gatherers learned to use smoke to calm the bees rather than originally trying to just burn them out. These for-fathers/mothers would slowly lay down the foundation for what we know today. Although it was not until the 1840’s that Lorenzo Langthroth truly revolutionized beekeeping, the quest for learning how to manage them probably began in Gragnok son of Gragnoo’s brain when the bejeezus was stung out of him climbing a tree.
With the advent of writing and religion ideas about how we came to be and why things happen in the world around us began to be put down on papyrus or blocks of dried mud. The ancient Egyptians used Hieroglyphics to detail their mythology. The Egyptian sun-god Ra is said in one story to have shed tears and when they hit the earth turned into honeybees which began to gather honey for man. The honeybees being ruled by a single monarch also reinforced the top down governing approach characteristic to the Egyptians. The honeybee is often seen as a symbol for Egyptian royalty.
The ancient Greeks also had a place in their heart for deities and honeybees. Melisseus, was considered the spirit or patron saint of honey and beekeeping. He was part of a family of spirits known as the Kouretes whose mother was Gaia. These mini-gods lived in an impossible to reach area and learned much about the arts of animal husbandry which they would eventually share with the humans. The mother of Zeus, Rhea, hid her child from Kronos by leaving him in the care of the Kouretes. It was written that the infant Zues drank a mixture of honey and milk.
In Hindu mythology honeybees serve as the bowstring of their Cupid equivalent, Kamadeva. Striding atop his 8 foot tall parrot he shoots the five tipped flower of desire into the hearts of his victim. I think a Monty Python sketch was done about him.
In the Judeo tradition, the Israelite’s swath of death and destruction through the Promised Land, was written to flow with milk and honey. However because they angered Yahweh it became the land of “curds and honey” but at least not the land of “you know what and honey.” I did find one instance where the Bible gave sound advice about honey as stated here. “Have you found honey? Eat only as much as you need, lest you be filled with it and vomit” (Prov 25:16)
The Christian tradition has their own patron saint with St. Gobnait protector of bees and Irish beekeepers. One of her claims to fame is routing an army by loosing her honeybees upon them.
The Mayans also had their own bee-god named, Ah Muzen Cab. Not much is known about him except that he might have looked like this.
I think it is safe to say that the honeybee’s place in the pantheon of all of these cultures is primarily attributed to their usefulness to humans. If instead they simply destroyed your homes like termites or rolled balls of crap down the trail there would not be a deity advocating this insect’s health and prosperity.
The honeybee represents so much more to humanity than their simple production of honey. As a symbol it represents hard work, its hive hierarchy denotes supreme organization, and its comb structure, elegant design with maximum efficiency.
Gods save the honeybee!
If you have an interesting story about your beekeeping experiences would you mind sharing it with the world? Looking for light-hearted comedic posts. No downers please.
If it rates well on my chuckle meter I would like to post it with your permission.
Thanks,
TWB
A while ago I placed an article in the paper announcing that I was looking for a place to put my new colony. Having just moved to the Charlottesville area I hoped I would find a landowner that would WANT to have bees on their property and was situated in an ideal setting. The Mayan honeybee god, Ah Muncen Cab, must have smiled down upon me because I shortly received a phone call from an eager landowner. I went out to the site and spoke to the nice lady and received a tour in her pickup truck of the property along with one of her hound dogs.
The property is situated south of Charlottesville and is located near an easement setup by John Grisham, the famed author of many books concerning fictional legal matters.
The landowner also has a few individuals who are doing some organic gardening on the property. This will mesh perfectly with my desire for my bees to pull resources from plants not treated with chemicals or pesticides. I was able to meet one of the partners for this sustainable venture and her little girl who was toted on her back in what I call a Happy Sack with my daughter. The weather was typically English, cool, wet and misty. We talked about her plans to expand their operation. I look forward to buying some vegtables and herbs in the future.
My apiary will be situated on the western side of an open field and will receive the morning sunshine early in the day. The location is also situated near a creek which will provide the honeybees a fresh source of water during the hot months. The only issue that may play a part is how much shade the colony receives. I have recently read that mites are less likely to prosper in hives situated in full sun throughout the day as the interior of the hive become less hospitable with its heightend temperatures. I hope this will not be an issue. Other than that the site is perfect, provided there are not any bears to overturn my hives.
Below are some pictures of the location. This week, placing an order for bees will be my priority.
View from the eastern side of the field.
Future apiary location.
