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BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR HIVE HEALTH

PLANTS + TREES FOR BEES

Honey bee colonies thrive when there is an abundance of pollen and nectar, year round, close by. Make planting food for your bees a priority.

FEEDING HONEY BEES

Learn how to feed your honey bees

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FOOD + WATER

An adult bee’s diet is primarily made up of three types of food. Honey, Nectar and Pollen. 

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NECTAR:

Some plants produce nectar in glands known as nectaries,  by complex photosynthesis activity.  The glands are commonly found at the base of flowers, where they produce nectar as a reward for pollinators, such as honey bees. There are also extrafloral nectaries often located  on the leaves or petiole.  The main constituent of nectar are carbohydrates; sugars such as glucose, sucrose and fructose, for some, a small amount of Sorbitol. Amino acids and proteins are the next most abundant solute in nectar. There are essential and non-essential amino acids, which are the building blocks for proteins and  some non-protein amino acids that are constituents of enzymes and preservatives.

Nectar also contains water,  important ions, such as potassium, as well as antioxidants, and trace amounts of lipids. 

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Foraging bees collect nectar by sucking up droplets with their proboscis. The nectar  provides immediate energy in the form of carbohydrate sugars, and excess nectar is stored in the bee’s stomach until the bee returns to the nest. The nectar is then passed from bee to bee.  An enzyme in the bee’s stomach turn the sugar into a diluted honey. This passage also helps remove some of the excess water.

The unripe honey is then stored in comb cells where worker bees fan it with their wings to evaporate the rest of the excess water until it becomes honey.

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POLLEN:

Pollen is a powdery substance produced by the stamen which is the male reproductive element of a flower. Pollen is quite a varied plant product rich in biologically active substances;  In the group of basic chemical substances, there are proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids and fatty acids, phenolic compounds, enzymes, and coenzymes as well as vitamins and bioelements. 

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Bees do not intentionally carry out pollination; it is the unintended result of the bee’s travels; when a bee lands on a flower, the hairs all over the bees' body attract pollen grains through electrostatic forces.  Individual bees tend to focus on one kind of flower at a time, which means it's more likely that pollen from one flower will be transferred to another flower of the same species by a particular bee. Stiff hairs on their legs enable them to groom the pollen into specialized  pollen baskets known  as corbicula. Some honey or nectar is regurgitated from the honey bees' stomach and mixed with the pollen grains in order to help them stick together, and is carried back to the nest.

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Although a tough outer coating protects the pollen from environmental stressors, honey bees have enzymes in their digestive tract that split the grains apart at a weak point. The interior is then digested and the empty husks are excreted. Most of the pollen is eaten by nurse bees. They use the nutrition absorbed from it to secrete royal jelly from their hypopharyngeal glands. The jelly is fed to young larvae, including workers, drones, and queens.

After the larvae are about three days old, the jelly they receive comes mixed with bee bread; a mixture of whole pollen, honey, and enzymes. The larvae continue to eat this mixture until they spin their cocoons. The queens receive a steady diet of royal jelly throughout their development.

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Honey bees collect pollen even from plants that don’t provide nectar, such as corn. In corn-growing regions, pesticide-contaminated corn pollen is suspected of causing severe health problems within the hive.

Most bees collect just pollen or just nectar on any trip, but a few carry both at the same time.

BEE BREAD:

Bee bread is a mixture of pollen and nectar or honey. This substance is the main source of food for honey bee workers and three + day old larvae. The exact composition of the bee bread varies depending on the plants that the bees forage from. This not only changes at different locations but also with the seasons and even at different times of the day. 

To make bee bread, worker bees fill approximately three-quarters of a honeycomb cell with pollen and then fill the remaining quarter of the cell with honey. The cell is then capped with wax. This helps preserve the pollen for future use.

 

Scientists have found that the bees add extra secretions and micro-organisms (such as bacteria and mould) to the bee bread. These additions help break down some of the pollen and release amino acids and other nutrients from the pollen.

 

WATER:

Honey bees drink water,  but they also use it for other purposes. In winter especially, honey bees use water to dissolve crystallized honey and thin honey that has become too thick and viscous. In summer, they spread droplets of water along the edges of brood comb, and then fan the comb with their wings. The rapid fanning sets up air currents that evaporate the water and cools the hive to the right temperature for raising brood.

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Biologist believe that bees probably find most of their water by scent rather than sight, so a water source with a smell will be more attractive. Water that smells like wet earth, moss, aquatic plants, worms, decomposition, or even chlorine, has a better chance of attracting a bee than sparkling water straight from the tap. 

HONEY BEE DANCE

When a scout bee discovers a new food source, the bee will return to the nest, and will  communicate with forager bees by means of a dance.

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There are two main types of honey bee dances: round dance and waggle dance.

The round dance, is a movement in a circle, and is used to indicate that the food source is less than 170 ft from the nest.

The waggle dance is a figure eight pattern while the bee waggles its abdomen and is used for food located at a distance of more than 500 ft. Exact distance can be communicated by duration of the dance. A longer dance indicates a great distance.

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The bee can also indicate direction with the waggle dance and will move in reference to the sun’s vertical position. The degrees to the right or left of the vertical indicate the direction of the food. So if the bee’s dance is rotated 30 degrees to the vertical then the food will be found at a 30 degree angle from the nest related to the sun’s vertical.

 

To learn more about the complexities of the waggle dance, click: HERE

Image: beeforest

PESTS + DISEASE

Texas Apiary Inspection Service has a comprehensive guide to pests and diseases the honey bee faces in Texas.

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United States Department of Agriculture shares a booklet: Diagnosis of Honey Bee Diseases.

FURTHER READING

THE BENEFITS OF POLLEN TO HONEY BEES

HOW NECTAR IS PRODUCED

 

SUGAR FOR BEES

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UNDERSTANDING POLLEN PATTIES

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THE CHEMISTRY OF HONEY 

BEES REMAIN EXCELLENT SEARCHERS, EVEN WHEN ILL

HOW DO BEES COMMUNICATE

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