Day #161 More jobs for bees

We left off yesterday with the little nurse bees feeding the larvae for six days. At that point, slightly older bees move in to cap off the larval cell so the pupae (that’s what they’re called at this point) can continue growing for 12 days into a baby bee. Those babies emerge and start cleaning cells.

Meanwhile, the nurse bees have gone on to other jobs. Up until they’re about 20 days old, they’ll be capping cells, constructing new comb, tending the queen, guarding the entrance to the hive, fanning the hive to heat or cool it as necessary, accepting nectar and pollen brought in by the forager bees, and packing it into cells, and curing the nectar into honey.

During their busy days, they also have to find the time to take orientation flights, circling the hive until they can recognize it from any angle. Gradually their flights get longer, so they can always find their way back home.

All this in three short weeks.

After that, the glands that produce wax and larval food have shriveled up, so the bees become foragers, traveling up to five miles from the hive to find nectar and pollen.

And it takes twelve bees to make one teaspoon of honey. If you’re ever lucky enough to get some Bees Knees Honey, you’d better appreciate all the work that went into it!

BEEattitude for Day # 161:

       Blessed are those who do their jobs well, for their hive shall thrive.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The pole bean plants that are beginning to twine up and up.    

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Day #94 Bee Dreams

I've been dreaming about bees recently. Now don't go all Freudian on me. I think it's just that I'm spending so much of my free time (when I'm not writing or reading) with bees on my mind. Even when I knit, I think about bees. Or when I wash dishes, or any of the other myriad tasks that fill a day.

I'm getting ready to send in an order for beekeeping supplies. The smoker I already have (even though I can't figure out how to make it work), but I need a hive tool and a bee brush--yes that's what I said, a bee brush--so I can gently brush the bees away from any particular area where I need them gone. I'm also seriously thinking of buying some labels for the honey jars I hope to be able to fill. Two nights ago I dreamed that I gathered in my first honey harvest. By the end of the dream I was covered in sticky honey, with a faint coating of pollen and a fair amount of glue-like propolis all over my kitchen counter and the floor. To say nothing of the cat hair stuck in the lot. Yuck!

Oh dear. What will I do with the cats while I'm trying to cut off the honey comb?

Last night I dreamed a better dream of comb honey on breakfast biscuits, probably because I'd been talking with my sister about how wonderful comb honey is and how hard it is to find. There wasn't any cat hair in that dream, so maybe there's a way to deal with this. And maybe I'll figure it out.

BEEattitude for Day # 94:

       Blessed are they who take no more than they need, for we bees shall replenish their stores. 

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The honey in my tea. It's not Bees Knees Honey, but next year at this time, it WILL be! I hope.