Homestead Handbook Beginning with Honeybees

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There are only a few hundred male, or drone, bees in a hive. They don't work a lick. They just eat honey, fly around, and look for an opportunity to mate. Such unions occur rarely . . . when a week-old queen goes on her mating flights high up in the air. It's then that the drones' distinctive large eyes and big wings come into play, for only the strongest males get to mate (passing on sperm that the queen can keep alive inside her for years!). . . and then fall to their — one hopes, blissful — deaths. The unsuccessful suitors meet their doom in autumn: No longer needed, they are forcibly evicted from the hive by — who else? — the workers.

At the heart of the hive is its queen, the sole female bee with fully developed reproductive organs. Indeed, all she is, is a royal egg layer; she has absolutely no decision-making authority. But what a layer! In the height of the season, she can produce 1,500 eggs — more than her own weight-in a single day.

The worker bees do treat her regally — they know the hive's existence depends on having a healthy queen — but as soon as she falters in her duties, they decide it's time for a replacement. They'll pick out a few cells with brand-new worker eggs, enlarge those cells to hold the bigger queen bees . . . and then feed the chosen eggs a diet consisting exclusively of royal jelly, a hormone- and protein-rich substance that miraculously makes female larvae develop into fertile adults. The workers will then dispose of the old queen.

All this bee sociology is as relevant as it is intriguing. Let's look at one of the "better beekeeping" conclusions that can be drawn from what you've just learned. If a single worker gathers only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its entire lifetime, it must take a whole lot of bees to give you a harvestable crop. Ergo, the number one rule of productive beekeeping is to do everything you can to make sure your hive is packed full of bees right at the time when your area's good honeyflows are on (that is, when lots of nectar-bearing flowers that bees like are in bloom). The obvious but all-important fundamental for this? If you want a lot of bees in your hive, you'd better have a healthy, productive queen.

OK, I Won't Do It Again.

Hold on there a minute," you say. "Here you are telling me how to increase production when I don't even have a hive yet. I thought this article was supposed to be an introduction!" Sorry, I got carried away. I tell you, talking about honeybees is like that.

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