A question about Bees (1 Viewer)

Does anyone keep bees? I have what is probably a very daft question, but something that occurred to me on the way home today - a place along my route advertises honey for sale, but not at present (presumably because they hibernate - or do they??) My understanding is that bees collect pollen to make honey to store to get them through the winter. So if we come along and take this away to sell and eat ourselves, does this mean the bees die? Or do we kindly leave enough for them to survive in the hive until there is plenty of pollen around again? :h?:

You're spot on in your thinking. Beekeepers will feed a sugar syrup type mixture to tie them over the lean period.

I'm not a beekeeper myself.

Angus T said:

You're spot on in your thinking. Beekeepers will feed a sugar syrup type mixture to tie them over the lean period.

I'm not a beekeeper myself.

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Sugar syrup isn't always necessary with a good strong colony, as honey bees produce an excess of stored honey and an experenced apiarist knows how much to leave, artificial feeding however can be a good insurance policy.

Colin.(ex beekeeper)

Thanks guys. Here's another one then. Bumble bees. They are wild bees, and don't go into the domesticated hives I assume. So what happens to all their honey? Do people trek around trying to find their nests and pinch the honey? And can anyone ever actual get a swarm of bumble bees and get them to go into a hive?

Bumble Bees don't have a colony as big as Honey Bees so I doubt it would make much economic sense to keep them for their honey (if they make it,that is? Now there's another question!). I know it's normally the queen who is the only one to survive the winter and has to start the colony afresh in the spring (or is that just the newly-mated queens?) and they normally nest underground in an old mouse nest. Don't know if anybody has ever tried to keep them in a domestic hive before...perhaps if they could use them the bumbles would not be getting so scarce!
Mmm...so many questions! Funny how you don't realise how little you actually knowabout something until questions about it arise....and lead to more questions! LOL
I'm sure somebody will be able to help more than I have.....where's Harry Eales when you need him? LOL

GILL

songbird said:

Thanks guys. Here's another one then. Bumble bees. They are wild bees, and don't go into the domesticated hives I assume. So what happens to all their honey? Do people trek around trying to find their nests and pinch the honey? And can anyone ever actual get a swarm of bumble bees and get them to go into a hive?

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Hello songbird, and Gill. lol.

Bumblebees have a slightly different life cycle to Honeybees in that only the Queens survive the winter in 'hibernation'. This means they do not have to build up a reserve store of honey to see a colony through the winter.

The only storage of honey is made by the Queen, shortly after setting up a nest in spring. This consists of a small thimble like 'honeypot' in which the Queen stores a small reserve of honey to see her through the early and sometimes inclement days of spring when temperatures or weather conditions may make it impossible for her to forage every day. When foraging is possible, the 'honey pot' is kept topped up, so there is always a small reserve for her to feed on.

With Bumblebees there is no Honeycomb at all, or for that matter any breeding comb. Broods of larvae are reared in small groups of cells scattered aropund the floor of the nest.

Bumblebees do not swarm at all, the colony is an annual item producing workers at first, then later in the season males (drones) and new Queens. These leave the hive and after mating disperse into the surrounding area. The new Queens build up reserves, (stored as fat) in their bodies, and then seek out a suitable site for 'hibernation'. The males after mating, possibly several times, eventually die off.

The colony founding Queen once having produced males and young Queens ceases to lay and the colony declines. Both the founder Queen and all the workers eventually die off, leaving only the new 'hibernating' Queens to found new colonies the next year.

A Queen may live a whole year, workers possibly 6 - 8 weeks and males about the same. At the end of the year the last few specimens seen are invariably male.

Hibernation is not really the correct term for the new Queen to undertake as some early appearing species e.g. Bombus pratorum produce new Queens as early as June or July. The correct term for this passage of time is 'diapause' rather than 'hibernation'.

It is possible to create artificial breeding sites for some Bumblebee species so that observations may be made on the developement of a colony, but it is a tricky thing to do, and not all attempts at doing so are, by any means, successful.

Harry

How DO you do that Harry....every time an entomology question pops up, I think to myself 'We need Harry here' and lo and behold, along you pop just minutes later! LOL You telepathic or something!
Thanks for the answers though...I've learnt something there.

GILL

Gill Osborne said:

How DO you do that Harry....every time an entomology question pops up, I think to myself 'We need Harry here' and lo and behold, along you pop just minutes later! LOL You telepathic or something!
Thanks for the answers though...I've learnt something there.

GILL

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Hi Gill, :hi:
Bumblebees are lovely creatures to study, I've been recording them for 40 years in Northumberland and Durham.

As to how I pop up whenever you think of me being needed in the Forum, it must be mental telepathy. I know I'm mental, my GP has been trying to get me to see a 'trick cyclist' for years. lol.

LOL

Bumble Bees ARE lovely...I'm looking forward to seeing what species turn up in the coming year where I'm living now...I had quite a few in my garden in North Shields as I only grow plants which attract insects. This Northumbrian garden looks a tad bare apart from a few iris and verbascum so I'm planning to soon get a few nectar-rich flowers in!
Though I have a feeling my landlord, the farmer, may give me a few odd looks as he goes by when I've got my head stuck in the flowers...best way to see the smaller bugs and beasties - get down to their level LOL

GILL

Gill Osborne said:

LOL

Bumble Bees ARE lovely...I'm looking forward to seeing what species turn up in the coming year where I'm living now...I had quite a few in my garden in North Shields as I only grow plants which attract insects. This Northumbrian garden looks a tad bare apart from a few iris and verbascum so I'm planning to soon get a few nectar-rich flowers in!
Though I have a feeling my landlord, the farmer, may give me a few odd looks as he goes by when I've got my head stuck in the flowers...best way to see the smaller bugs and beasties - get down to their level LOL

GILL

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Hello Gill,
It depends where you live in Northumberland how many species of Bumblebee you are likely to see. If you could PM me with the 10km Grid Square in which you live, I can send you a list of what species have been recorded in your vicinity. You should have at least 6 species which are relatively common, and possibly a few of the scarcer Bumblebees, unless of course your living on a mountain top.

Harry

Waht literature do you suggest for Bumble Bee IDs

Seeing a few Bumble Bees these days in the cold. saw one on Rosemary, the temp was +2.3C and the sleet was coming down at the time!!,
I also saw a small bumble bee which I would assume was a worker, but it would be fierce early for that. Any explanation? Are there some small species? Didn't get a good enough look to see what markings were on it.

Angus T said:

Waht literature do you suggest for Bumble Bee IDs

Seeing a few Bumble Bees these days in the cold. saw one on Rosemary, the temp was +2.3C and the sleet was coming down at the time!!,
I also saw a small bumble bee which I would assume was a worker, but it would be fierce early for that. Any explanation? Are there some small species? Didn't get a good enough look to see what markings were on it.

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Hello Angus,
Books on the ID of British Bumblebees are rather scarce and good ones are hard to find. A recent publication is one of the best, this is,

The Bumblebees of Essex
T Benton Hardcover | 2000 | £18.50 | Available from NHBS web site.

I have a copy of this and I can recommend it.

The best book of the last Century was D.V.Alfords Bumblebees, only one edition was ever published and the printer is out of business. Printed in 1975 it cost £25.00 then, but it so rare that I have seen £200.00 asked and obtained for a not particularly good copy. Alford ran the Bumblebee Recording scheme for the BRC and the book covers all the British species and sub-species. If you ever see a copy, buy it whatever the price, it's better than money in the bank.

There are a couple of other cheap bumblebee books around but they don't cover all the species or the colours of the pictures are poor and not conducive to reliable identification. There is considerable variation in bumblebee colouring and this makes then sometimes difficult to ID.

As to what you saw in your garden, there is an early emerging common Bumblebee, Bombus pratorum, it is frequently out in late February or early March, the queens can vary in size but some are very small indeed going up to 2/3 of the size of some of the other common bumblebee queens.

However it has been a funny year so far with some insect species out months from when they should appear, so without a specimen or a good photograph this is just an educated guess. It is however a common species in the British Isles.

Harry

I'd completely forgotten about this thread I started. Just came on to say thanks very much Harry, that's really interesting. It also explains why we saw so many poor dying little bees in the trackways of the forestry last autumn. I thought they had some awful disease, but I guess it was just nature taking it's course. I had no idea the poor things had such a short life. How sad. They are really cute little creatures, I often pick them up and have never been stung (famous last words) Unlike wasps, nasty!