Buzzing about bees

We visited a beekeeper and asked lots of questions about honey bees. here is what we found out.

1. Why are bees important?

They are important to help pollinate plants. They are very important to farmers to help the crops grow. They are also important to help lots of different types of wild flowers get pollinated and grow, and these help all sorts of other animals to survive too.

2. What do you do to look after your bees?

Keep them in a dry box (bees really do not like damp). Sometimes feed them sugary water if there are not many flowers around. Every couple of weeks, check if the queen bee is there and how healthy the hive is looking by checking for eggs and queen bee pods. Put new frames in (with a bit of hexagon wax sheet to start them off) when the hive has filled the ones that are there. Clear the wax off the frames every 3 or 4 years, add new frames and get rid of the old ones.

3. What flowers do bees like?

They like lots of different flowers with a variety of pollen. It is especially good to have some flowers that flower early in the year for them. Willow trees one of the only type of trees that are especially good for bees because of the early pollen, and lime trees can sometimes produce loads of nectar. Dandelions are also good.

4. What are the different types of bees in the hive?

Each hive usually has one queen bee but sometimes could have two or three. The queen bee produces the fertilised eggs to make new bees. Worker bees can't produce fertilised eggs but can produce unfertilised eggs that can turn into drones. Worker bees do all the work in the hive including feeding other bees, collecting pollen, making wax, and telling the queen where to lay eggs. Drone bees are male bees and their job is to mate with the queen bee.

5. What can people do to help bees?

Plant lots of different types of flowers including ones that flower early to help bees out in the spring, and then some other types of flowers that flower later so there is pollen around through the year. Let dandelions flower because they are good for bees. Plants like cotoneaster that have lots of small flowers close together are better than plants that have just a few big flowers. Don't use chemicals like pesticides on your garden because these will harm the bees, even if they don't kill them they can build up over time and damage them. Other things you could do include setting up a bee hive (if you have space) or making bee or bug houses to go in the garden so they have places to live.

Our favourite facts that we learned were that the reason bees die when they sting you is because half of their guts come out with them. Also, bees have really strong muscles across their chest (a 2 pack!) that mean that they can beat their wings about 200 times per second. In the winter the bees huddle around the queen and sort of dislocate their wings, then use movement and flapping to create heat and move the heat around, keeping the queen warm and safe.

We found it really interesting to find out about bees and how important they are, as well as what we can do to help them. We hope you enjoy finding out about them too.