The mesmerising world of bees

Bees pollinate flowers, and as a reward they suck the nectar of the petals. If there were no bees, many wild flowers would disappear . And bees also have an impact on cultivated plants. At an annual basis, the industrious workers are worth about 3 billion DKK to Danish farms and market gardens. Add to this the pollination value of fruits and berries in private gardens.

And on top we get their sweet honey. But bees do not get much more than ingratitude. A multitude of bees have perished due to pesticides, and the number of bee families has dropped from 250,000 in 1950 to less than 100,000.

Bees are worth saving

- not only the honeybee, but also the 283 species of wild bees found in Denmark.

In spite of the hot summers in recent years, the weather has made it difficult for bees. During their busiest months, May and June, they prefer a hot, dry climate. But it may have been damp and cool when rapeseed fields looked their best with their tempting yellow flowers. And when the carpet of heather was blooming in the autumn, it may also have been cold and wet. Like everyone else, bees want proper work conditions - and that is not cold and damp weather. Thus, they do not harvest enough of the nectar from  the purple flowers. 

A year in a beehive

Autumn and winter

In most beehives, the family has finished its winter preparations. The male, lazy drones have been exiled in the cold weather, and the egg production of the queen bee - in early summer some 2,000 eggs per day - has been reduced. And it stops at the end of October.

The most important task before winter sets in is the storing of supplies. Worker bees have struggled to fill as many cells as possible with honey and pollen. 15-20 kg of honey is required for one family to make it through winter. In addition, the hive population must be balanced. If there are too many bees, they may run out of supplies before spring. If there are too few bees, they may freeze to death. Finally, the bee community must have a large number of worker bees ready for spring tasks when flowers start to bloom. This balance is kept by natural wastage. 

The adulthood of a summer bee is only 4-7 weeks. With the dwindling production of eggs in autumn, too few bees are raised to replace worn-out bees. From the workforce of app. 60,000 bees in summer, the number of busy comb workers is quickly reduced to about 20,000.

Bees move around the hive until the temperature drops to below 10^oC. At this point, they huddle together to keep each other warm. The crowd is located right next to the honey supplies. Honey must contain 60 % of water for bees to eat it. In a sealed cell, the water content is only 20 %, but when bees open its cap, the honey will absorb moisture from the air and let bees eat from the supplies.

Spring and summer

When beehive temperatures reach 15^oC, the honey-producing workaholics venture into Nature again. Spring flowers are waiting with pollen and nectar. Bees deserve a good start - the longer they must go to find food, the more dangerous their spring journey. It is a good investment to choose plants that bees favour: more seeds, more fruits and the wonderful by-product honey.

No later than March, the queen bee has produced the first egg of the year. Three weeks pass before a bee is hatched, and another three weeks until it becomes a worker bee. To prepare the community for the abundance of nectar and pollen from trees and flowers in May, the queen has to start well ahead of time. Early summer is a busy period for industrious bees. Between 15 and 30 kg of pollen must be gathered, and 50 kg of honey must be produced - a goal that requires 5 million flights! However, early spring is a dangerous time of year. The climate around the hive and at ground level is mild, but they may fly through shadowy and cold spots - which will paralyse and kill them.

When summer starts to heat up, bees become romantic. The daily 2,000 eggs produced by the queen bee soon fill the combs, and the bees become cramped for space. At the same time, the queen's scent that keep a community together does not reach all corners of the hive. Some of the bees start making new queens. The old queen bee gathers her troups, and the swarm heads out into the world to find a new place to live.

After the romantic period, a sense of calm comes over the bee communities. They fly between summer flowers and gather supplies for winter. And when blooming starts to decline they start preparations for winter.

The honey dance

Bees gather nectar and water in their honey stomachs located right in front of their intestines. To fill it to capacity - app. 40 mg nectar - a bee has to visit app. 85 apple flowers. A gram of nectar requires 25 flight to and from the apple tree - and app. 2,000 flower visits. If you calculate the effort required for the 1 kg of nectar required for 500 g of honey, you will appreciate the sweet taste even more!

The gathering of nectar and pollen is not random. Scout bees check out which flowers have the most solid content of nectar or pollen. Back at the hive, they perform a so-called waggle dance to tell field bees the direction and distance of their goal. The number of rounds per minute indicates distance - the less rounds, the longer to go. Bees even allow for head or tail wind in their calculations. The direction is indicated by the direction of the dance in relation to the movements of the sun. The quality of food to be gathered is indicated by the intensity of the dance. The higher the quality, the more intense movements!

Honey

In order to attract bees and other pollinating insects, flowers produce nectar. Nectar contains fruit, grape and cane sugars, a few minerals, proteins - also present in pollen - and, not least, scent and aroma substances. The nectar of each plant has its own scent and taste - reflected in the honey made from the nectar. If you practise, you will be able to taste and smell if the bees have gathered the nectar from heather, rapeseed or crocuses.

In the honey stomach, enzymes are added to transform the fruit, grape and cane sugars into other sugars that are easier to metabolise. Through a valve between the honey stomach and the intestines, bees filter pollen and bacteria. This will reduce the risk of crystallisation of the honey.

When the field bee comes back to the hive, it will pass the nectar on to a house bee in charge of further production. The water content is lowered from 60 to 20 %, the cane sugar is transformed, and bacteria-inhibiting substances are added before the honey is stored in cells and sealed with wax. Enter the beekeeper who will remove the honey combs and give bees a sugar solution in replacement. The only thing the beekeeper has to do is to extract the honey - a task that sounds easy to do, but is hard to perform - and pass it through a strainer. And it's ready for you to enjoy!

While bees must make do with the sugar solution, we enjoy the honey-sweet life during the cold months of winter. Bees are, indeed, worth saving!

First-aid for bees

Spring is the time of planning your crop for bees to get through cold winters and hot summers. Your efforts will also give you a better harvest of fruits and berries - and not least honey!

Just like us, bees appreciate a varied selection of flowers near their hives. Early harbingers of spring such as winter aconites, crocuses and anemones are very nutritious for bees. But don't forget trees. Willow is a highly treasured harvest ground for bees, and they are easy to grow. Take a few branches from a tree with large, pollen-rich male flowers and put them into water. When they have grown roots, you plant them in your garden, and after a few years they contribute to bee welfare.

Many garden flowers do not only benefit bees, but also birds, animals and humans. So there's no reason not to use that garden trowel!

Facts about bees

The life of a worker bee

The worker bee has a life span of six weeks. Despite this short span, it changes its function and name six times:

• Day 1-3: Cleaning bee. The recently hatched worker bee is a barren female bee. It starts cleaning the cells.
• Day 4-9: Nursing bee. The bee feeds older larvae and looks after the queen bee.
• Day 10-16: Wax-sweating bee. She uses wax from her own body to build cells.
• Day 17-19: House bee. She receives nectar and pollen from older bees and fills the cells.
• Day 20: Guard bee. She determines from the smell of incoming bees whether they belong to the hive. Intruders are killed.
• Day 21-35: Field bee. She spends the rest of her life gathering nectar and pollen from flowers.

The way to the honeypot

In late June, the beekeeper starts harvesting honey. He carefully removes the honeycomb and uses a bee smoker to calm down the bees: the bees think that their hive is on fire, and they will eat their honey to save it - and that will make them drowsy. The beekeeper wears a protective suit and a hat with a veil. 

The layer of wax sealing the cells must be removed with a special fork. Combs are mounted on an extractor - a centrifuge that will force the honey out of the combs. Next, the honey first passes through a metal strainer and then a small-meshed textile strainer into a large plastic container for stirring before being bottled.

The beekeeper replaces the winter supplies with a sugar solution to make sure that bees are able to survive winter.

A beehive family consists of:

• Queen bee: Only one in each family. Produces eggs.
• Drone: Male bee. 1,000-2,000 in each family. Dies after mating. Removed in autumn.
• Worker bee: Sterile female bee. App. 60,000 in a major bee family.

Bees gather nectar:

Bee products = nectar + pollen

• A family produces 90-120 kg of honey per year.
• They eat 50-80 kg, and the rest is harvested by the beekeeper during summer.
• As a replacement, the family gets 18-20 kg sugar in autumn for winter supplies.
• The honey stomach of a bee is the size of a pinhead.
• To fill the stomach once, the bee must visit 1,000–1,500 flowers.
• A bee can fill its stomach eight times per day.
• The stomach must be filled and emptied 50 times to gather one tsp of honey.
• 1 g of honey contains 1,500-10,000 grains of pollen.
• A bee can fly at a speed of 25 km/h.
• A bee seldom goes more than 2 km from the hive.
• On a good day, one family can produce 2-5 kg of honey.
• Bees visit many different flowers and trees; that is why the taste and colour of honey varies.

Bee words

• Propolis: Resin from trees. Gathered and chewed by bees and used for sealing the hive. Propolis is an anti-bacterial substance that boosts the immune system, fights bacteria and fungus infections and has an anti-biotic effect on bees.
• Royal jelly: Food for queen bees.
• Wax: Bees sweat wax which is used for storing food and honey.