Bees
(Continued from Page C 18)
flying thousands and thousands of
eggs.”
Brossman told how each bee
must return to its own hive every
day. Guard bees are posted at each
hive entrance and drive off any
wayfaring bees who mistakenly
drop by.
Becoming a guard bee is one step
on a honey bee’s progressive
promotion chart, he said. When the
worker bee is hatched after a 21
day incubation, it immediately
begins its duties as a nurse bee and
feeds a mixture of pollen, honey
and water to the other larvae in the
‘nursery’.
The worker bee then graduates
“Without honey bees, there'd be no honey, no fruit,
nothing,” states Brossman.
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to guard, and finally earns its
wings. It then takes to the held to
gather nectar and pollinate
flowers, working itself to a
seasonal grave as its wings
become tom and tattered. The
worker bee’s life ends in service.
The ‘lazy’ bee of the hive is the
drone, the male. Only four or five
drones are permitted in a hive.
Their only function is to mate with
the queen bee during her first year,
said Brossman.
After the queen mates for life,
the drones are tolerated in the hive
until fall. They are then driven
from the hive to a death of star
vation.
■‘The worker bees don’t want to
feed them over winter,” Brossman
said.
For the worker bees and queen
MEMBER F.D.I.C.
bee remaining in the hive over
winter, the chance of survival
depends on the amount of honey
they have produced that summer,
Brossman pointed out.
“I can tell by lifting the top
super, where the honey is stored, if
there is enough for them to make it
through the winter,” he said with
pride. “Some years there’s hardly
any honey, even for my family’s
use. The bees have used it up to
raise their young.”
Last year, he said, his hives
yielded 300 pounds of honey, where
the year before, they made 600
pounds. It all depends on the
weather, he explained.
The apiarist told how the bees
produced honey from nectar
gathered from flowers and
blossoms.
“When the worker bee enters the
hive, the nectar is put into the
frames found in the bottom of the
lower super. Thousand of bees then
fan their wings creating an air
current which evaporates
moisture from the nectar.
“The fanning maintains the hive
at one temperature, acting like a
heater when it’s cool and an air
conditioner when it’s hot. If a hive
gets too cold in the winter and the
bee larva die in the frames, called
‘chill brood’, the bees will uncap
the cells, remove the dead larva,
and the queen will deposit new
eggs.
“Once the moisture has been
evaporated from the nectar, the
‘honey’ is moved up through the
hive and put into the honeycomb
cells. The bees continue fanning as
the honey‘ripens’.
- When the honey is npe, they seal
it with a wax cap. If it isn’t capped,
moisture can get m and the honey
will sour.”
Brossman said he allows his bees
to make honey until October,
(Turn to Page C2O)
'IT
A puff of smoke releases its calming effect on the bees as
Brossman examines the frames stored inside the bottom
super. The bees continue to work on the frames he holds,
feeding the young a mixture of honey, pollen and water.
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 25,1981-Cl9