20
COROMANDEL LIFE
SPRING 2013
Drones, vital role in
continuation of the colony
Numbering rarely as many as a thousand and
making up about 5% of the population of the
colony, male bees or drones are larger than
the unfertilised females, having developed in a
slightly larger cell than female worker bees.
Adult drones have wider, rounder bodies than
workers and, like all male bees and wasps, do
not have stingers. They are identified by huge
compound eyes that meet at the top of their
head and an extra segment in their antennae.
Drones have the single function of mating with
a new virgin queen and, boy, are they high
maintenance! They must be nurtured and cared
for by the female workers. Mating happens as
much as a mile away from the hive, on the wing
about 2-300 feet above ground. The drones
large eyes come into good use spotting the
virgin queens on their nuptial flights.
Unfortunately, the sex life of a drone is not a
happy one. Mating with the queen means the
end of life – their reproductive part has a barb
which causes parts of the body to be torn away
after mating. The drone then falls to its death.
After the period of mating is concluded and
the nectar production season ends any drones
remaining in the hive are unceremoniously
evicted from the colony by the workers. This
reduces the numbers of feeding members to be
supported over the leaner winter months. We all
know the blokes are often the biggest eaters!
Out in the field finding
gold: The female foragers
The sterile female foragers are the true workforce
of the colony. There’s no time to protest about
working conditions! While still young they
babysit and feed the baby bees but once mature
they spend most of their life on the wing in a
collection role, gathering the raw ingredients of
honey, pollen and nectar, from flowers.
They have a blunt triangular head with three
eyes, one of which is visible on their forehead
and two compound eyes. The antennae are
divided into 11 segments and supply the bees’
senses of touch and smell. The proboscis is
used for sipping water honey and nectar and
curls back under the head. Their feet have
pronged claws for gripping onto flowers. The
pollen baskets are on the rear legs.
They work tirelessly to keep the hive clean,
make honey, royal jelly and beebread to feed
larvae, produce wax, cool the hive by fanning
their wings, shape and form the cells of the
8-sided honeycomb, the crib into which the
queen lays the eggs. They also guard the hive
and feed and care for the queen and drones. A
woman’s work is never done!
Beekeepers can ensure more forager bees are
born by returning the waxy comb to the hive,
or by melting the wax and creating a “honey
comb” wax sheet, imprinted with the size of the
foragers’ cells. The foragers don’t click onto the
ruse and continue their waxy buildup of even
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more forager cells so more foragers are born,
and thus more honey is produced by each hive.
THE BEE DANCES
Bees communicate in an extraordinarily detailed
way. On their return, scout bees run on the
surface of the comb, indicating to the others
the direction others must fly to locate the flower.
The scouts then perform a circular dance if the
flower is within about 100 metres of the hive.
Stimulated by the dance other bees go out in
search of nectar. The dancing bee has the scent
of the target flower on its body and has left a
scent clue on the flower.
Ever wondered where the term ‘beeline’ comes
from? If the flower is further away, the dance
is like a figure 8. The speed of the dance and
the rate at which the scout wags its abdomen
communicates the exact location of the nectar.
So much information is communicated in the
dance that the bees are able to make a ‘beeline’
for the nectar.
Another dance tells of potential new homes
when the hive is overpopulated. The old queen
then moves out with about half of the colony,
leaving it to a new queen.
WE NEED THE BEES
Although bees may not need us, we do need
them. And always have. Bees were first
domesticated in Egypt around 2400BC and
speaking at a TED conference in Boston in
2012, 30 year old, Noah Wilson-Rich, called
America’s sexiest bee scientist, said bee
drawings have been found in caves dated
13,000 years ago.
In an earlier TED speech in 2008 Dennis van
Engelsdorp made a ‘plea for bees’. “Tasting
honey for the first time is just sort of nectar from
the gods. They’ve always inspired us. I also
think it’s connected with our youth — you know,
running barefoot through a meadow, getting
stung in the toe… is a rite of passage. And I
think we all understand at some level that if that
can’t happen anymore, that we’re diminished.”
With our reliance on agriculture and horticulture
in this country the simple honey bee plays
an essential role in our economy. NZ earns
over $80 million annually in honey from the
9-12,000 tonnes produced, almost half of
which is exported. Income is also generated
from domestic sales of honey, beeswax and
exporting actual honey bees.
Bees also perform the function of pollination
of agricultural plants such as clover, sown as
a nitrogen regenerator for pasture, providing a
nourishing foundation for our wool and meat
producers.
Although many countries are fighting off total
bee colony collapse, our diligent New Zealand
beekeepers have managed well. A recent report
stated that there are currently 450,000 managed
hives, up from around 300,000 in 2005.
