MEMBERS of the Henley Wildlife Group were given a talk called Beekeeping Past And Present at their spring meeting held in the King’s Arms Barn.
Ian Gourlay, from Oxford, said bees were found on every continent, except Antarctica, and man had been exploiting them for their honey since 200 BC.
European honey bees collect nectar and take it to their hive where they regurgitate it for the worker bees to feed the larvae living in the honeycomb. They also collect enough to survive the winter.
Bees use a sort of dance to indicate to others where there is a good source of either pollen or nectar. If it's close they move in a circle and waggle their tail but if it is further away they make a figure of eight with their tail.
The queen is an egg-layer only. It is the sterile workers that make decisions en mass and feed royal jelly to create another queen.
Propolis, or bee glue, is made from resins in balsam and tree sap and is used to fill cracks in the nest.
The dramatic drop in numbers is believed to be due to a mite, similar to the spider mite, which damages the bees’ immune system, leaving them susceptible to fatal diseases.
Published on 15 March 2010
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