What’s the Buzz about Honeybees? [All You Need to Know]

When entering the world of beekeeping, its important to do your research and learn all you can about your new buzzing friends. That way you not only grow your knowledge and have better success in caring for your bees, but you can also become a bee advocate.

Let’s Start with the Basics; What are Honeybees?

Honeybees are social incest’s who live in large colonies that can contain thousands of female workers and one queen bee.  The queen bee’s job is to lay eggs for the hive; Fertilized eggs become female worker bees. While unfertilised eggs will become male bees or Drones – Drones are typically only seen during the spring mating season and their only purpose is to reproduce with young queens.

Humans and Bees

Apiculture or Beekeeping is the human management of honeybee colonies to harvest honey. Apiculture dates back almost 10,000 years ago starting back in Ancient Egypt. Today, modern beekeepers typically create human made beehives that have rows of wooden frames with wax for the bees to build – most hives in the USA follow Langstroth dimensions, this type of hive has been used for over 150 years and allows the beekeeper to be able to easily access the bees, the honey, and the brood (Bee Larva)

What all can Honeybees Do?

Why are Honeybees so important to our world?

Honeybees are an extremely valuable pollinator – a pollinator is a creature that carries pollen from plant to plant to help them produce seeds, flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Honeybees play an important role in our ecosystem as they pollinate a third of the world’s food production and help pollinate more than 100 crops in the US.

Honeybees contribute to our biodiversity – the biodiversity is the mixture of creatures, plants, and organism who contribute to the ecosystem. In the United States, there are over 4,000 native species of bees that range in different sizes and colors; while all bees may not create honey, all bees do help pollinate our world. When bees land on the plants, pollen will then gather behind the bee’s legs called pollen baskets and is carried to other plants as they forage.

Honeybees are the only insect in the world who creates food for humans – Honey. When bees are collecting nectar, they do so by collecting nectar into their mouths and into an organ called a honey stomach. When the workers return to the hive, they regurgitate the nectar in a chain until the bee’s enzymes have broken the nectar down into simple sugars. Once this process is completed, the nectar is dehydrated to have less than 20% of water, then it’s sealed in a honeycomb chamber with beeswax. Also long as the honey is properly stored, it can last for years to come.

What is Threatening Our Honeybees?

The main threats to honeybees are grouped into what scientist call “the four p’s”
Pesticides, pests, pathogens, and poor nutrition.

The First Risk for Bees is Pesticides:

As our world evolves and commercial farming grows, so has the use of pesticides. These chemicals are a threat to the native insect population and has a negative impact on our environment. Luckily many countries have become aware of these issues and have changed regulations to call for a reduction in pesticides.

The next risk for Bees is Pest and Pathogens:

In the United States, there are two different types of mites that are harmful to Honeybees: tracheal mite (Acarapis woodii) and Varroa mite (Varroa destructor)

Tracheal Mites:
These mites are microscopic parasites that live inside the tracheae in the body of Honeybees – the trachea are the breathing tubes inside the bee that transfer oxygen to the tissue throughout the bees body. These mites typically infest bees under 24 hours old as older bees are resistant to these mites. These mites tend to cause problems in colder times. However, due to natural selection and selective breeding, most North American Bees are resistant to the tracheal mites. Some fumigants that control the Varroa Mites also kill Tracheal mites like thymol and formic acid. The only way to detect the Tracheal mites is to slice the thorax (where the wings attach to the body) , examine the tissue, and use a microscope at over 400 times magnification. When less than 5% of bees are infected, the hive will likely survive winter. With North American Bees being more resistant to these mites, most beekeepers do not check for these mites.

Varroa Mites:
These mites are small tick looking creatures that appear coppery brown/red spots that are about 1.5mm wide and are quick movers. These mites stay on the bee’s exterior to feed. These mites also reproduce using the Honey Bee Life Cycle; Female Varroa mites enter into the bees brood cells, since the mites use the same chemical the bee larva use this signals the worker bees to seal the cell and the Varroa mite then feed on the larva and lay their eggs in the cell. While Varroa prefers Drone Cells, they will reproduce in worker cells of European honey bees.

Cause:
The Varroa mites transfer from colony to colony by hitching a ride on drone bees to contact uninfected bees.

Monitoring:
There are different ways to check for Varroa mites.
First, you may open sealed drone cells and examine them for coppery brown mites on top of the white pupa.

Then, another way to detect these mites is to sample them with a “sticky board”
A “Sticky Board” can be created by taking a ⅜ inch thick wooden frame with a screen attached. Attach contact paper on the bottom and cover in vegetable oil. Place in the colony near the entrance. When performing this text, count the mites that fell on the board within a 24 hour period. If 10 mites are found on the board in early spring – began treatment. If more than 50 mites are on the board late in the season – began treatment.

A final test for mites is to use a jar with a screened lid, then put half a cup of bees (roughly 300 bees) in the jar – then coat them liberally with powdered sugar. Let this sit for 2 minutes and then shake the mites onto a white surface; keep shaking until few mites are falling. You can apply water on the powdered sugar to make it easier to spot the mites. The more samples taken, the more accurate your predictions on infestation. If the test reveals 15 mites on around 300 bees, then the hive is at about a 5 percent infestation rate. Infection rates are high if the infection rate is over 3 percent in the spring and if it’s 5 to 10 percent in late season – treatment will need to be started.

Finally, the last big risk is Poor Nourishment:

Honey Bees gather pollen to create Honey to feed themselves, when there is a lack of pollen supply then the bees will suffer. Malnourished honey bees are not as effective at removing pesticides from honey, these pesticides have long term negative effects on honeybee health. 

Causes:
Habitat loss and intensified agriculture is leading to diminished food supplies for honey bees. Consuming only one type of pollen verses a mixture also weakens their immunity to infections
 
Prevention:
To prevent undernourishment of your honey bees, it is important that the Honey Bees receive adequate nutrients.
Adult Bees require carbohydrates, and sugar from nectar for energy and thermoregulation while Honey Bee Larva need proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals to help them grow. All these nutrients come from Pollen – this is full of protein. Then there is also nectar, this is the main source of sugars, sucrose, glucose, and fructose for the bees; Nectar also contains a small amount of amino acids. When the water is removed from the nectar, it is then stored as honey after repeated regurgitation and evaporation in the hive. Another way to prevent malnourished is to ensure the preservation of semi-natural habitats in farmland and maintaining the wildflower population to provide the Honeybees with a varied diet.

Summary:

Bees are important to our ecosystem as they help pollinate our world. Humans and Bees have coexisted for centuries and we have enjoyed the bee’s beeswax and honey. As our world evolves so do threats to honeybees but with proper care and intervention, the bee population can thrive.

Sources:
We need bees. Planet Bee Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved January 23, 2023, from https://www.planetbee.org/why-we-need-bees

Why bees are essential to people and planet. UNEP. (n.d.). Retrieved January 23, 2023, from https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/why-bees-are-essential-people-and-planet

Bee is for biodiversity. Defenders of Wildlife. (n.d.). Retrieved January 23, 2023, from https://defenders.org/blog/2021/05/bee-biodiversity

Uyeno, G. (2020, November 13). Here’s all the buzz about honeybees. LiveScience. Retrieved January 23, 2023, from https://www.livescience.com/honeybees.html