Interesting Things about Bees

The Waggle Dance !!!! Bees exhibit amazing social structure and intricate communication. A honeybee returning to the hive with food will perform a unique waggle dance to inform others about the location of a good food source. The dance includes zig zag movements and the angle and duration of the waggle indicate the direction and distance of the food source in relation to the sun.

Caring for the community: Bees prioritise the well-being of the hive over their own individual needs, demonstrating a strong sense of community and responsibility.

If a queen dies the hive will recognise this and start to produce queen cells in which a new virgin queen will be born.

I think a lot of bees are misunderstood, people think they are mean and just sting. A bee will only sting if it feels extremely threatened.

Honey comes in a variety of tastes and colours which tells us a lot about what the bees forage on.  For example dark red from Gorse, green from Wild Honeysuckle, and yellow from Primrose.  Spring honey is usually very pale in colour and summer honey is usually a lot darker.

When inspecting a hive, if you are going through the frames and the bees are just walking around the frames getting on with their jobs and leaving you alone you know you have a happy hive.

Bees do have different personalities and moods. This is often down to various factors. The breed of bee you keep, the weather and the time of year. If you get a smell of banana’s in your hive this indicates the bees are angry.

If workplaces behaved like beehives, they would likely see increased collaboration, focused effort, and a stronger sense of collective purpose, potentially leading to higher productivity and innovation.

A lot of plants do not have enough pollen and nectar that the bees need, although they look pleasing to the eye, they are useless for pollinators, some plants can even be harmful. Native plants are always best.

The Queen Rules the hive !!!!

Everybody thinks the queen rules the hive when in fact it is the female worker bees that make all the decisions.  If they don’t like a queen, if she is ill or has not mated properly so unable to lay viable eggs the workers will kill her and replace her.