BEEKEEPING
The queen is king of the castle
W
hat came first: the
chicken or the
egg? Much the
same question could be asked
of a beehive: where does the
queen bee come from? Well,
from an egg fertilized by a
male bee, the drone. So who
is more important, the drone
or the queen? Well, if it were
not for the queen, there
would be no drone. It's as
simple as that.
The queen is the great
mother of the hive. She goes
about her day laying eggs,
every day, all day. Maybe she
rests at night, but her rest
period really comes with the
cold weather when flowers
are few and little pollen and
nectar are being brought into
the hive. The brood nest
recedes in the winter as the
queen reduces her egg laying
programme and this can be
Another in our regular series on aspects of The queen has an entourage
beekeeping, supplied by Peter Clark of the of young bees that form a
Eastern Highveld Beekeepers! Association circle around her who
looked upon as her rest
period of at least 14 weeks.
Migrating beekeepers that
move their hives to follow the
crops throughout the year do
not rest their queens and such
queens only survive for one
year. Such a beekeeper must
have in place a requeening
programme to replace failing
queens as part of his management skills.
A queen, surrounded by her entourage, lays eggs. The pink dot has
been added by the beekeeper to aid in identifying her.
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continually preen her and
feed her. Young bees secrete
a good supply of royal jelly
that is her main diet.
Beekeepers are not sure how
she is fed water and perhaps
a little honey and pollen to
vary her diet as well.
There are house bees that go
ahead of her cleaning and
polishing cells for her to lay
her eggs. Her entourage
ushers her about the combs
to these polished cells into
which she lowers her
abdomen and out pops an
egg about two millimeters
long, and standing on end
should one look down into
the cell. After three days the
egg turns into a horizontal
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