Learning About Bees

By Mrs. Conrad

What is a honey bee?

Honey Bee

• Insect

• Hairy body

• Lives in a colony

• Eats nectar, pollen, and honey

• Produces honey

• Can sting once, then she dies

Wasp

• Insect

• Smooth body

• Skinny waist

• Lives in a colony or solitary

• Eats other insects

• Can sting repeatedly

How to “bee” safe

• If you see a swarm, tell an adult to call the police at the regular number, not 911. Many police departments have a list of beekeepers who will adopt the bees.

• Do not disturb the swarm or try to spray or burn it. You will only get yourself stung and get the bees mad!

• Stay away and do not swat at

the bees.

• Honey bees do not want to sting you—they die after they do!

• Wear shoes or sandals when playing in the grass.

• If a bee “buzzes” you, walk away from it.

• You can look closely at a bee on a flower if you remain calm and remember that you are in its space.

How do bees help us?

• Honey bees pollinate flowering plants.

• One out of every three bites of food you put into your mouth is there because of insect pollination.

• Honey bees also produce honey, beeswax, and propolis.

What do bees do?

• These bees are using stored honey to feed babies, or

larvae.

• Visit the Amazing Beecam: go inside a beehive!

How to save bees• We depend on honey bees and other

birds and insects to pollinate the flowers that produce many of our crops.

• Since 2006, a strange condition called CCD (colony collapse disorder) has caused many bee colonies to die out. Scientists are studying this, but they can’t figure out why these colonies are dying.

• Learn more about our forgotten pollinators here.

Mrs. Conrad’s new beesThis box holds 3 pounds, or about 9,000 bees. Inside is a little box, about the size of a pack of Tic Tacs, that holds the queen. We dump the bees into their new hive and they chew through a marshmallow to get the queen out.

Spraying sugar waterThe bees were hungry and thirsty after coming to Ohio from Minnesota. I sprayed them down with sugar water before we dumped them into the hive. After we got them settled, we had to feed them with a special feeder bucket on top of their hive until they had enough time to make some wax comb and gather nectar and pollen.

• This is one of our colonies in June 2010. On a hot day, many of the bees will gather outside of the hive to keep the inside from being too hot.

Getting Ready to InspectI think it’s really exciting to look inside a hive. We wear protective clothing and rarely get stung. Looking inside gives us an idea of how the bees are doing. We look for eggs, larvae, capped brood, or pupae, and to see if the bees are collecting enough pollen and nectar.

In this picture, Mr. Conrad and I are looking closely at a frame of bees. Each box holds 10 frames. In the summer, we keep adding empty boxes when the top one is full. These top boxes will be our honey. We leave at least two of the lower boxes for the bees to use in winter.

The SmokerThat silver thing is a smoker. We use it to puff smoke on the bees when they get upset. When they smell the smoke, they go inside the hive and start eating honey. The smoke makes them calmer, too.

Here’s Nicole!

My daughter, Nicole, likes beekeeping, too. She has good eyes and can always spot the queen.

Bumblebee

This is not one of our honey bees. Bumblebees are important pollinators, too. They live in the ground in small colonies and they all die in the winter, except for the queen.

Free FoodNicole made some strawberry honey but put too much flavoring in it, so we fed it to the bees. They didn’t mind the strawberry flavor at all!

Honey!Here I am holding a frame of honey. The white layer is wax, which means that the bees have removed enough moisture from the honey to keep it fresh all winter. We want to get the honey out without destroying all the wax.

UncappedWe scratched off the cappings and now you can see the honey. We use a machine called an extractor to get the honey out. It spins around like a washing machine and the honey flings out and lands in the bottom. This frame weighs between 4 and 5 pounds.

ExtractorYou can see the wooden handle on this extractor as we prepare to put the frame of honey in. Once we have 3 frames loaded, we close the lid and take turns spinning the handle. We have to take the frames out and spin the other side, too. Our arms get really tired!

Through the gateThis is an opening on the extractor. We have a 5 gallon bucket with a very fine strainer which we pour the honey through. Those white specks are pieces of the caps that were flung off the comb when we spun the extractor.

One of my beautiesI never thought I would have so much love and admiration for an insect! Bees are AMAZING!!!

Bee Links for Kids and Parents

• What to do if you are stung by a bee or a wasp

• Five ways to save our bees

• Comb honey video

• Preventing stings

For More Information…

Multimedia: Video and images

• Beekeeping Video

• Inside a Honey Bee

Interactive

• NOVA Online interactive bee site

• Help the Honey Bees

A pond digging side trip

We just thought we’d dig a pond right here one Memorial Day weekend. We wanted a place for our dogs to swim so they would stop trying to sneak into our pool.

Weird!

We thought we’d have to put some drainage pipes in the ground to get our pond to fill up, but the spot where we dug already had pipes and when we broke them, the water started filling it up!

The very next day…

Now we can enjoy boating in our own back yard! Bon voyage!!

Greenhouse under construction…