We've been talking about rescuing a beehive for over a year now. The idea of doing our part to help save the bee colonies that help pollinate our crops sits well with us. And the idea of harvesting our own honey is an added perk. After lots of research and attending bee meetings, we have decided to move forward in our beekeeping experience. We weren't sure when we would get a hive, but knew we'd make it work when the timing was right.
On Christmas morning, we found a young bee hive making it's home in a bird house at the end of our driveway. Our "bees are welcome" vibes must have been sensed, and we have been chosen, so we now have a bee hive and are being thrown into the learning curve of beekeeping.
They were too small to move last month, and there was fear the hive could die if we relocated them too quickly, so we've been waiting for their brood to grow so they can keep warm and adjust to the changes of relocating them to a safer location out of the traffic of people. Any day now we should be moving them, and I'm feeling excited. As you can see from the photo above, they are definitely working hard and growing in number.
Honeybees are incredibly fascinating, and there is a serious misconception of them because of getting stung. They only sting if they feel threatened, but mostly they fly up and out, foraging for food to bring back to feed the young and store for the winter. It is a very self sufficient process, and mostly they want to keep to themselves and do their thing.
The most fascinating thing to me right now is how self reliant they are about everything. Their lifespan is about 6 weeks long, and in that amount of time they will graduate from roles in the hive to perform all the duties before the end of their life. Hives consist of only females. When they need more brood, they make drones by feeding some of the larvae a special mixture of things, and at the end of a longer growth period, they are ready to mate with the queen. When they are done mating, come fall, they are no longer allowed in the hive because they will eat too much food. The guard bees won't let them back in, and if one tries, a group of bees will drag the drone out and push him to the ground. The drones wait outside the hive until winter where they starve and die.
The nurturing side of me feels sad for the drones. I feel like I should leave some flowers out for them in the fall just so they can look like they have purpose and have a dignified death. But they say to let bees do their thing, and they've been functioning like this for years, so I guess it's a system that works for purposes of their productivity, so I'll just observe and try not to intervene.
