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Factfile: Bees
There are about 280 species of bee in this country.
There are about 280 species of bee in this country.
The big, stripy bees most commonly seen in our garden are bumble bees, which are wild and not kept by beekeepers. Honey bees are smaller and have less vivid colouring.
Bees can fly up to a mile away from their hive to get to their flowers.
If a bee has something wrong with it, it will fly away from the colony to protect it.
In winter, bees cluster together to keep warm. The bees in the middle of the cluster eat the honey and then move to the outside, where they shiver to keep warm, until they make their way to the middle again.
In the summer, when they are most active, bees only live for six weeks. During the winter, when they are conserving their energy, they tend to live from October to March.
During the spring, a queen bee will lay 1,500 eggs a day. Each hive only has one queen, which will live for three to four years. She mates at the start of her life and stores up the sperm ready to lay eggs throughout the rest of her life. During her life, she will lay about one million eggs.
Fertilised eggs will be female bees. The majority of bees in a colony will be female, and they will either be a worker or a queen, depending on how much food they are are given as they develop. Unfertilised eggs will be male bees, or drones. A hive will have 200 drones, who are on standby to mate, and up to 50,000 worker females.
Related feature:
6 March 2009: Beekeepers face up to threat that could affect every one of us
Hannah Gray met two beekeepers from the Peterborough area to find out just how bad things are for one of the most important insects in our skies.
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Bees collect nectar from flowers and evaporate much of the water from it.
An enzyme in a part of their body known as the honey sack inverts the sugars, and when the water has gone, it becomes honey.
They make it as food for themselves, for their young and to store over winter.
Honey is extracted from the colonies by cutting the tops off the cells. They are then put into an extractor, which is like a centrifuge. This throws the honey out of the comb, and the wax is then filtered out.
However, honey is not always extracted, as beekeepers must ensure that there is enough food for their tiny charges. A hive will need to go into winter with about 20kg of honey in its stores.
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Weather for Peterborough
Thursday 24 May 2012
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