The idea of beekeeping has been bouncing around our household for sometime now, so last weekend we attended a beekeeping workshop presented by Hawfields Honey House and hosted by the Durham Garden Center.
Hawfields is a family run business located in Mebane, what started as a hobby, evolved into a passion and a business. They offer extraction + bottling, honey sales, education, hive foster care and hive removal services.
The plight of the honey bee is a concern for beekeepers and pretty much anyone who enjoys eating, as the honey bee is the leading pollinator of food eaten in the United States. It is the only pollinator of over one thousand foods eaten every day, including blueberries, almonds, avocados, coffee, cacao, lemons, broccoli, chili peppers to name just a few. Honey bee populations have seen a decline from about 6 million hives in 1947 to 2.4 million hives in 2008, though data suggests a small increase since 2008.
“WORLDWIDE, APPROXIMATELY 1,000 PLANTS GROWN FOR FOOD, BEVERAGES, FIBERS, SPICES, AND MEDICINES NEED TO BE POLLINATED BY ANIMALS IN ORDER TO PRODUCE THE GOODS ON WHICH WE DEPEND.”
– -THE POLLINATOR PARTNERSHIP
The decline of the bee population can be attributed to a handful of causes such as climate change, pesticides, mite infestation and the changing landscape. If you want to help your local bee colonies, fill your yard with pollinator friendly plants such as––basil, lavender, thyme, mint, rosemary, sage, hyssop, zinnia, sunflower, poppy, cosmos and many more.
Other pollinators–butterflies, moths, hummingbirds, wasps, bats, beetles, ant, lizards and rodents.
Honey bee break down:
Worker Bee
- Larva take 21 days to hatch
- Live about 45 days
- The smallest in the hive
- Collect nectar
- Build the hive
- Guard the hive
- Make honey
- Tend to the queen
- Clean the hive
- Care for the young
- Female only
Drone
- Mate with the queen
- Eat honey
- Removed from the hive when nectar becomes scarce
- Male only
Queen
- Larva take 16 days to hatch (fed Royal Jelly)
- Lives 2-5 years
- Lays 1500-2000 eggs a day
- Her stinger is only used to fight rival queens
- The largest in the hive (go here for a great visual)
Fun Facts:
- One pound of honey takes one bee about 55,000 miles of flight and visits to around 2 million flowers.
- A drones sole purpose is to mate with the queen.
- There is only one queen per hive.
- The honey sealed in honeycomb tubes can last forever.
- Honey bees have five eyes.
- Worker bees are all females.
Good information links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder
http://kare.co.nz/honey-bees/interesting-facts-about-honey-bees/
https://www.1millionwomen.com.au/blog/foods-we-would-lose-if-pollinators-werent-around/
https://honeylove.org/list-of-food/
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/
