{"id":5660,"date":"2021-07-26T17:01:28","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T16:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/bristol\/?p=5660"},"modified":"2022-04-06T17:21:10","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T16:21:10","slug":"speaker-meeting-12th-july-2021-annabel-lewis-the-world-of-the-honeybee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sigbi.org\/bristol\/2021\/07\/26\/speaker-meeting-12th-july-2021-annabel-lewis-the-world-of-the-honeybee\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaker Meeting 12th July 2021: Annabel Lewis – The World of the Honeybee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Annabel has been a bee keeper for 10 years and is Chair of North Somerset Bee Keepers.\u00a0 Annabel started by describing the privilege of being a bee keeper.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Relationship between the honeybee and the flower: <\/strong>She described the relationship between the honeybee and the flower which has evolved over many years. With wind pollination you need a lot of wind and so nature has devised its own way to pollinate.\u00a0 Flowers communicate with the bees and bees communicate with the flowers.\u00a0 She showed us the flowers in ultra-violate light.\u00a0 The entries to the flowers showed as dark with nectar guides guiding the bees to their centre.\u00a0 They also communicate electrostatically and the honeybee is drawn to the plant because of this.\u00a0 The pollen lands on the honeybee and it carries the pollen on its back legs.\u00a0 As it moves to the next flower it deposits the nectar there.\u00a0 Her tongue acts as a straw and sucks up the nectar into her honey stomach taking it back to the hive and turning it into honey.<\/p>\n

How do bees know where to go? They do the \u201cWaggle Dance\u201d: <\/strong>They send scout bees out from the hive to flowers like the blackberry flower (this is called foraging) when in season and they bring back samples to the hive and do the \u201cwaggle dance\u201d.\u00a0 They waggle in the direction of the flowers and the time she waggles tells others how far away the forage is.\u00a0 They stay harvesting the nectar until it runs out.\u00a0 Lots of other insects pollinate too. Honeybees build up their numbers depending on the availability of the pollen.<\/p>\n

Honeybee Nests\/Hives: <\/strong>Skeps are the original basket hives but it is difficult to scrape out the honey from this type of hive.\u00a0 Annabel showed us the traditional wooden hives and modern polystyrene hives which are light and insulated but are not hard and tough like the wooden ones.\u00a0 There are also other types of hives.<\/p>\n

Inside the Hives <\/strong><\/p>\n

Honeybees:<\/strong> 50-60,000 at the height of the foraging season (July).<\/p>\n

One Queen Bee:<\/strong> She can lay 1,500-2000 eggs a day.<\/p>\n

Worker Bees:<\/strong> (Female) There are thousands of these female bees and they dictate what happens in the hive, their jobs are endless.<\/p>\n

Drone bees:<\/strong> (Male) Not many jobs for these bees.<\/p>\n

When Bee Keepers take the lid off the hives they see many honeybees.\u00a0 By shaking the bees off they see the eggs in the centre, young and pupating larvae.\u00a0 Around the edge is the pollen and around that the honey with a wax sealing.\u00a0 The queen lays an egg which takes 12 days to emerge as a worker bee.<\/p>\n

Producing Honey: <\/strong>In the winter the bees cluster in a group in the hive and change places inside to outside of the group to keep warm. Honeybees collect all different types of pollen and store it to feed baby bees.\u00a0 They produce more honey than they can use.\u00a0 The bees are left with the honey they need to over winter and then the Bee Keeper removes the excess.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Swarming: <\/strong>This happens April to June and is the way bees reproduce. They produce a new queen and when they swarm half of the colony goes taking the old queen with them leaving the new queen to develop the other colony.\u00a0 The swarm is attracted to the queen by pheromones.\u00a0 Scout bees are sent off to look for a new home.\u00a0 Bee Keepers are alerted to the swarming bees by the public and collect them to form a new hive.<\/p>\n

Threats to Honeybees: <\/strong>There are a number of threats but the main one is the Varroa mite.\u00a0 They attach to the honeybee and pass on diseases.\u00a0 They have been in this country for many years and the honeybee is starting to adapt to it.<\/p>\n

Asian Hornet: <\/strong>These have been in this country for about five years but hey have not established themselves.\u00a0 They are carnivores and prey mainly on honeybees taking the thorax of the honeybee back to its young.\u00a0 It is bigger than a wasp and is very distinctive with dark sections on its body and yellow on its legs. There is an Asian Hornet Watch App and this helps with identification and to report sightings.<\/p>\n

Annabel ended by encouraging us to help honeybees by planting bee friendly flowers. For more information visit www.rhs.org.uk<\/a> or www.bbka.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally she encouraged us to take up a new hobby \u201cBee Keeping” and if we are interested to visit www.northsomersetbeekeepers.org<\/a> where we will find out how to start.<\/p>\n

This was a very enjoyable, informative and fascinating talk.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Annabel has been a bee keeper for 10 years and is Chair of North Somerset…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":584,"featured_media":5666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-supper-meetings-read-what-our-speakers-have-to-say"],"yoast_head":"\nSpeaker Meeting 12th July 2021: Annabel Lewis - The World of the Honeybee | News | Blog | Events | SI Bristol<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SI Bristol : Blog & News : Speaker Meeting 12th July 2021: Annabel Lewis - The World of the Honeybee : Keep up to date with the latest news, articles and events from the Soroptimists of SI Bristol . 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