Honey Bee ( Apis Mellifera)
It is in the Apis (Bee) genus, which is a hymenopteran order of the insect class of the animal kingdom. There are 11 known species under the Apis genus, and among these species , Apis mellifera, which is found everywhere in the world except the poles, is the most common honey bee species in the world. Our country (Turkey) is quite rich in different bee races and ecotypes.
When looking at different studies around the world, on average, bees perform more than 80 percent of the pollination process of our cultivated products. It can be said that it is impossible to imagine human life without honeybees.
100,000 Compound Eyes, 200,000 Wings and 300,000 Legs
During a peak population season in early summer, a honey bee colony consists of 30,000 to 80,000 bees living in a single beehive.
QUEEN BEE
Each colony has only one queen. While worker bees live for a few months, the queen bee can live up to 7 years. Her primary duty is to continue her generation by laying eggs in the colony, or brood center, and to be the leader queen bee of the colony. She allows other bees in her colony to recognize her thanks to a special hormone she secretes. Each colony has a separate queen and a separate hormonal secretion, a kind of fingerprint or barcode belonging to the queen bee.
The queen bee's body is significantly larger than that of worker bees. While worker bees have a single-use, serrated needle, the queen bee has a special needle that she can use over and over again and can only sting as many times as she wants in an emergency.
In fact, worker bees and queen bees hatch from the same type of egg. However, the bee that will become a queen has been fed only Royal Jelly since infancy and therefore her ovaries and body have developed. She is a mother and has a physical difference and superiority over the workers.
WORKER BEE
The majority of bees in a hive are workers. Worker bees are female bees. Without them, the queen and male bees could not exist. Initially fed only a small amount of royal jelly, they later consume honey, nectar, pollen and some water. Female bees that do not consume royal jelly remain as honey bees, i.e. workers.
A worker bee lives its life in two periods: inside the hive and outside. The first 21 days are the rookie union duties and they only work inside the hive. They do tasks such as cleaning the honeycomb cells, feeding the larvae, secreting beeswax and weaving the honeycomb, venting the hive, defending it, cleaning the hive, taking the nectar and ripening it, storing the pollen in the honeycomb cells. They work intensively.
After 21 days, the bee goes out of the hive for service outside the hive and starts working in the field, this bee is now called the “field bee”. While the worker bee lives for about 35 days in the summer active period, the bees inside the hive in the winter can live for about 5-6 months.
DRONE
Drones have a very difficult life in the bee community, and not just because they are a minority. For example, they don't have a sting. Once they come to life, the only job a drone has in life is to fertilize a queen.
Later, during the nuptial flight, the drones compete to mate with the queen. If successful, he mates with the queen and dies. In summer, the unsuccessful drones are isolated from the community. The workers refuse to feed them, banish them, or prevent them from returning to the community. They no longer even have a place to sleep.
DO HONEY BEES SLEEP?
While most bees do not sleep at night, some honeybees, bumblebees and solitary bees do. We have written interesting information for all bee lovers, which is the answer to the question of whether bees sleep: baldukkani.com.tr/makale/arilar-uyur-mu
BEE REPRODUCTION
Honey bee colonies can be considered superorganisms due to their social life. We are talking about the entire colony being seen as a biological unit instead of "one bee" individually. The reproduction of honey bees is observed not only in the number of offspring but also in the multiplicity of colonies. The process of reproducing a new colony is called swarming.
GIVING A SPOUSE
When a bee colony reproduces (by swarming), the colony splits in two. The separated queen - the queen bee - and her bee swarm now start living as a separate kingdom/principality. Unfortunately, this activity often conflicts with the beekeeper's goals. The hive population in the main colony temporarily decreases, and this can mean less honey harvest. In technical beekeeping, it is important not to let the bees swarm, to manage the colony, and to try to get swarms from the most suitable hives according to the need.
European honey bees usually gather in spring and early summer when pollen and nectar sources are abundant. 10-20 daughter queens are produced by the colony to begin the swarming process. When the daughter queens enter the late pupal stage, the queen mother and approximately 2/3 of the adult workers leave the colony and move to a place to mate.
We have only reviewed the honey bee at the moment. We would like to discuss other bee species separately in the future.
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