Day #331 The Termites vs. the Bees

Termites and Bees—those sound like opposing football teams, don’t they?

All along, since I decided eleven months ago to get a couple of bee hives, I’ve thought those queen bees were pretty productive--they can lay up to 2,500 eggs per day for weeks or even months at a time.

I’m afraid the termite team is going to win this particular game, though. The other evening I watched a documentary I’d found on Netflix that said a termite queen can lay up to 30,000 eggs per day. You read it right – thirty thousand. That leaves my queen bee looking like a slacker.

On the other hand, if a queen bee could lay that many eggs in a day, the hives would have to be ten times bigger than they are. My whole deck would be one enormous hive.

I’ll stay with the slow team, thank you.

BEEattitude for Day # 331:

       Blessed are those who take life at a (comparatively) leisurely pace, for they still get much accomplished and shall be happier as they do it.

__________________________

Green as a Garden Hose, the 3^rd Biscuit McKee Mystery,

is now available in mass market paperback

from World Wide Mystery, a division of Harlequin.

(Go to www.eHarlequin.com and search for Fran Stewart)

_______________________________

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If you win, your dog will be in my next Biscuit McKee mystery!

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See Blog #324 for the details.

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Day #186 How Many Queens in a Hive?

Dr. Jim Ellis asked us that question, and we all got it wrong.

Another myth exploded.

Everything I’ve ever read has told me that a queen bee will kill all her rivals (any other queens). But Jim asked us this:

Why does a beekeeper think there’s only one queen in a hive?

Answer: Because the beekeeper stops counting when s/he finds the first queen.

Well, doggone it. That’s right. Every time I’ve seen beekeepers looking for their queen, they find her and say, “There she is – now let’s close up this hive so we don’t disturb her too much.”

Jim’s researchers at the Honey Bee Lab at the University of Florida don’t stop looking when they find the first queen. Sometimes, they say, there are two or even three queens in a hive.

Amazing, isn’t it?

BEEattitude for Day # 186:

       Blessed are the queen bees, for they are our mothers.  

Forty-two-thousand things Fran is grateful for right now:

       The bees I’ll be picking up TOMORROW!   

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Day #104 Smelly Feet

Queen bees have smelly feet, and that's what keeps their workers happy.

(c) Yelloideas Photography

The tarsal glands on the queen's feet ooze with pheromones (chemical substances) that ebb and flow. The mandibular glands in her mouth do the same thing. Nobody’s figured out precisely how many pheromones are present, but it is known that they are precise indicators of the queen’s health. Changes in the balance of pheromones let the worker bees know what shape their queen is in. If she smells right, she’s okay. If something goes wrong with her, her feet change their smell and the workers know they have to do something.

Public Domain Photo

The attendant worker bees constantly groom the queen, and this spreads the queen smell throughout the hive. The bees are so sensitive to the smell of their queen that when a queen is disabled or is removed from the hive, the workers all know it within minutes and spring into action to correct the problem.

As any bee can tell you, you gotta have those wonderful, informative, smelly feet!

BEEattitude for Day # 104:

       Blessed is she who knows (nose) what’s she’s doing, for she shall, like us bees, be productive.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The New American Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta, where there’s a marvelous production of Twelfth Night during January. 

Day #51 Drone Facts and Philosophy

1. Adult drones, unlike worker bees, have no stingers, so drones can't sting. Worker bees, with their barbed stingers, die when they sting someone or something. But drones are so fat and sassy they don't need to sting anyone. Their danger zone comes about when an unmated queen flies up to a drone gathering. She'll mate with 20 or 30 drones -- and the poor guys literally explode at the end of the mating process.

          It's never failed yet: whenever a man hears that fact, his comment (following a chuckle) is always, "Well, at least they die happy."

2. In a natural bee hive, drone cells (the ones that are larger than worker cells) are grouped around the bottom and sides of the hive frame. When a queen is ready to lay an egg in a large cell like that, she chooses a non-fertile egg. Yes, she can tell the difference. That non-fertile egg grows into a drone. The eggs for the worker bees are laid in a spiral pattern starting near the center of the frame. Some beekeepers think the bees waste too much energy creating all those drone cells and drone larvae, and some go so far as to cutt off the drone cells. But, guess what? The workers will just build more drone cells. Why?

      Well, I've read that if a predator breaks into a hive, it will generally start eating the comb at the edges. Voila! The drones are there to serve as sacrificial hive-savers so the worker larvae are more likely to survive.

3. Drones in the late fall are a sorry lot. You see, each drone eats an inordinate amount of honey, and a hive couldn't survive the winter with the non-productive fellas eating up their food stores, So, as the weather turns colder, the workers force the drones out of the hive and dump the drone brood (the unhatched baby drones) out the front door. And I thought A Slaying Song Tonight was gruesome! It's nothing compared to this mass murder.

4. The good news is that as winter comes to a close, the queen begins laying eggs for both workers and drones that will mature shortly before the new workers are needed for the upcoming spring nectar and pollen. The drones that emerge get to eat a lot and go flying around, where they gather with other drones and buzz-buzz-buzz about guy things, until along flies a brand new queen. And then . . .well, they die happy.

BEEattitude for Day # :

       Blessed are the drones, for they shall contribute to the survival of the hive. 

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The rain that is filling the pond near the corner of GA-20 and Old Peachtree Road. 

Day #48 The Family History of Bees?

Bees don't need genealogy. When 80,000 bees in the hive are all sisters and have the same mother and won't be having children themselves, it seems a little silly to chart them.

I suppose serious bee breeders like to know where their queens come from. I'll be buying a particularly gentle breed of bees next Spring, and I suppose I'm glad the H&L Bee Farm people know what they're doing, but the bees themselves couldn't care less.

They know when a queen is failing -- not laying enough eggs -- and they get rid of her and create a new queen. Then the new one flies off and mates with whatever drones she finds in the drone-gathering place. Those drones have congregated from miles around -- no telling what their genetics are.

So, after a while, my H&L gentle bees will probably evolve into their own little family with traits that I might not have counted on when I got the original batch. That's life, folks. And it's a logical consequence of "natural beekeeping," letting the bees what they do naturally. Come to think of it, the new queen might mate with drones that are even gentler. Wouldn't that be great?

I've read in several bee books that if an undesirable trait (such as bloodthirstiness?) crops up, it's my job as a bee-keeper to isolate the queen and - - - gulp! - - - squoosh her. I don't know if I'd be able to do that. Hopefully I've never have to find out.

If I do -- you'll read about it here, and you'll just have to imagine the tearsdrops spotting the page.

For now, though, all is well on Frannie's back deck. Of course, there aren't any bees there yet.

BEEattitude for Day # 48:

       Blessed are those who let well enough alone, for they have have a much simpler life. 

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       My granddaughter who called me on Thanksgiving Day. Remembering our conversation lightens my heart. 

[All photos are from the public domain unless noted otherwise.]

Day #22 Bee Queen Wings

It's (relatively - if you're an experienced beekeeper) easy to spot the queen. She's the one with the short wings. Not really. They're the same size as the wings of the workers, but her abdomen is a great deal longer than theirs, so her wings just look shorter.

Her first few flights allow her to orient herself to the hive so she can find her way back to it. Then she takes off to the drone-gathering place. Don't ask me how she knows where that is - it probably has something to do with smell, but nobody seems to know for sure. After she's mated and returned to the hive, the workers start feeding her lots of good bee food, and her abdomen increases greatly in size. As well it should, since she's going to be laying anywhere up to 2,500 eggs a day for the rest of the season, and for two, three, or even four years after that.

She'll never use her wings for much, unless the hive has to swarm. If the workers decide to leave the hive, they stop feeding her as much, so she'll slim down to a weight where her wings can support her. When she's slender enough, half the worker bees in the hive leave, enticing her along in some magical unknown bee language. They all go find another place to live, and the remaining workers get busy on the queen cells they've built up around some regular old eggs. By stuffing those cells with Royal Jelly, they actually create a new queen.

And you thought the queen was in charge????  Nope!

BEEattitude for Day # 22:

       Blessed are those who tread the ground lightly, for they shall not hurt our food sources.

One thing I’m grateful for right now:

       Smiles and hugs from my grandchildren.