Honeybees Need Help Too

Honeybees do a lot to help us, but they need some help from us too.   

In the winter, honeybees eat food that the beekeepers leave in the beehive. By spring, the hive is usually getting low on food, so honeybees need to go visit flowers to collect pollen and nectar. The first flower that gives the honeybees lots of pollen and nectar is the dandelion. You can help honeybees by letting your grass get a little longer in the spring and letting the dandelions grow to give the honeybees food. Once dandelions are mostly white, honeybees can't get anymore food from the flower; then it is a good time to cut the grass. 

 

Planting flowers for honeybees to visit is another great way to help honeybees. Planting flowers that will boom at different times in the spring, summer, and fall make sure that they honeybees will have food all the time. 

 

One hive of honeybees can go through a gallon of water every day. They have to collect that water to drink and to cool down the beehive. Honeybees cannot swim, so you can help them get the water they need by putting some stones in a bird bath. The stones give the honeybees a place to land and sit while they are collecting water. Other than helping the honeybees get food and water, there is another way you can help them. 

 

Leaving the honeybees that you see on flowers, in the air, and drinking water alone to do their work helps the honeybees. Honeybees do not want to sting you. They are working to make honey and food for the beehive. Don't swat at honeybees when you see them, and give them some space to keep working. These are all very easy ways you can help honeybees do their jobs!

How Honey Bee Pollination Works

If it weren’t for honey bees and other pollinators, we would lose out on a lot of food that we eat on a daily basis, such as apples, oranges, and almonds. In fact, ⅓ of the food crops we eat are dependent on pollination and 80% of the pollination is done by honey bees. 

Pollination of flowers and crops is accomplished by honey bees through a simple process. Honey bees land on flowers to primarily collect nectar to make into honey, but also collect pollen on the millions of hairs that they have. They then fly to other flowers of the same type and pollen is dropped off when the honey bees collect more nectar. This then pollinates the blooms so that fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds are able to grow into the food we eat. More specifically, the pollen from the anther of a flower sticks to honey bees which is then inadvertently carried to the stigma of the flower, which is shown in the picture below.

Honey bee pollination is done by carrying pollen from
the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower.

Top Flowers & Plants Honey Bees Like

Honey bees collect nectar and pollen from the flowers and plants they visit. However, there are certain flowers and plants that they tend to visit more than others. Knowing which flowers and plants that better attract honey bees can allow you to plant the right ones in your garden. Each type of flower has a different blooming season, length of life, and how tall they are. Knowing these details allows to you pick the perfect ones based on your needs.

Some of the top flowers that honey bees like are:

Bee Balm

• Blooms in the Spring, grows back every year, and grows to 1-4 feet tall.

Black-Eyed Susan

•  Bloom in the Summer and Fall starting the 2nd year, grows back every year, and grow to be 1-3 feet tall.

Purple Coneflower

•  Bloom in the Summer and Fall, grows back every year, and grows to 2-4 feet tall.

Sunflower

•  Bloom in the Summer and Fall, only grow/live for one season, and can range in height from 1-15 feet tall.

Wrinkle-Leaf Goldenrod

•  Blooms from late Summer to Fall, grows back every year, and is about 3-4 feet tall.

What do Bees Eat?

Did you know that honeybees eat more than just honey? They eat a couple different types of food to stay healthy and have energy to work!

Of course honeybees eat honey! They make it from nectar, the sugary substance flowers make to invite the bees to visit. The honeybees gather this nectar to make into honey. You can learn about how honeybees make honey in our past post called “How Do Honeybees Make Honey?” The honey they eat is the source of carbohydrates and gives them energy. Did you know that honey is a good energy source for humans too!

The pollen baskets are packed full!

Honeybees also eat pollen (a powdery substance flowers make) for their protein. They mix the pollen with nectar and pack it onto their back legs into their pollen baskets. They then carry the pollen home to feed to the brood (baby bees). This pollen keeps the honeybees healthy so they can fight off infection in the hive and help the baby bees grow big and strong.

The milky substance inside the cells is royal jelly.

Royal jelly is a milky, protein rich substance that the honeybees feed special eggs to make them become a queen bee. If the egg wasn’t fed royal jelly then it would become a worker bee, but when an egg is fed the special food it supercharges their development so that they are able to lay eggs and become a queen bee. Royal jelly is made from glands in the bees’ head. Some people like to eat royal jelly because it has so many healthy proteins in it. While it doesn’t turn you into a queen bee it can be a great way to keep yourself healthy.

Lastly, honeybees drink water. All living animals need water and honeybees are no different. They look for slow moving sources of water because honeybees can drown. Pollinating and collecting nectar is a hard job and the worker bees need somewhere safe to land to take a drink of water. We wrote back in February about how you can build your own bee water bath!

Other than honey, find these in the hive!

Everyone who enjoys honey loves it for the taste and the unique, sweet flavor it possesses. We use it for cooking, as a natural sweetener, and even for medicinal purposes! However, many people don't know about the other products honeybees use and produce in the hive!

Honeybees make beeswax to form their hive. The bees create hexagonal shaped cells with the beeswax to store honey and pollen in. The cells also serve as a temporary home for the larvae (the developing bees). People may purchase beeswax with the honey still inside the cells, which is known as comb honey.

Comb honey is the most natural form of honey because it is bought exactly as it comes from the hive. Other than comb honey, there is chunk honey, which is a chunk of comb honey in a jar of liquid honey. Beeswax is used in plenty of cosmetics because of its soothing and healing properties. Beeswax may also be used to create candles; the candles have a very fresh, delicate honey smell, and they last quite a long time!

Propolis is what honeybees use to seal the cracks of their hive; the propolis makes the hive safer and more sanitary. Propolis is very beneficial for not only the honeybees, but also humans. Propolis contains anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial properties. It is so rich in beneficial properties because it is made from sap in trees and resin from the tops of leaves and plants along with honeybee saliva and beeswax.

Pollen is a powdery substance honeybees carry from flower to flower to successfully pollinate. To gather it, honeybees collect the pollen on the backs of their legs in their pollen baskets. Then they bring the pollen home to produce bee bread. Bee bread is a mixture of honey and pollen that is fed to the larvae. Humans may also consume pollen; it contains plenty of nutrients and a lot of protein. People may buy it to use on salads and in smoothies. Pollen is a great source of protein for vegetarians.

There are so many different amazing products of the hive people may purchase and use in their life. Make sure you talk to a local beekeeper and try some for yourself!

Products of the Hive

The wonderful world of a beehive has long been known as the location where our honey bees make honey. What many don’t know is that honey bees make and collect other products for the hive. Those products can be extracted and utilized by us in our daily lives.

Honey

Honey is the most common product of the hive.

Honey is the most commonly thought of product that comes from the hive. Honey bees collect nectar from the hundreds of flowers they visit in a day. That nectar gets returned to the hive where it is deposited into a honey comb cell. The nectar is then fanned by a worker bee’s wings to get a lot of the moisture out for it to be turned into the honey we enjoy. Honey can be used for cooking instead of granulated sugar, for treating minor cuts and scrapes, and is a great remedy for treating a sore throat.

                                                              Beeswax

Beeswax is made from honey bees' bodies.

Honey bees produce tiny scales of beeswax from their body that they use to build up the honey comb and cover the nectar that has been turned into honey. Beeswax that is extracted can be used to make beeswax candles, lip balms, and other skin care products.

Pollen

Pollen is collected by honey bees to be used as food.

When a honey bee visits flowers to collect nectar, it is also collecting pollen. The pollen collected is stored on the back two legs of the bee on their pollen baskets. The pollen collected is returned to the hive where it is stored in a honey comb cell to be used for food. Some people use pollen as a protein supplement. They add it to their cereal, yogurt, or even in smoothies.

Pictured is royal jelly in queen cells

Royal Jelly

A worker honey bee has glands on their head that produce a special liquid we call royal jelly. This jelly is crucial for growing queen bees, but humans also use it. Royal jelly contains botox, which prevents wrinkles, it is shown to help with wound care and can be found in skin and hair care products like the shampoo I use!

Most Important Job

What do you think about when you hear the word Pollination? Honeybees are a big part of pollinating one third of the food we eat. Honeybees have a lot of hair on their bodies, and when they are flying the wind is blowing through their hair, which creates static electricity. Then when they land on the flower the pollen will literally hop on their backs because it is attracted to that electricity.  As the bees move from flower to flower, the same process will happen.  Some of the pollen that they already have sticking to their hair will fall off onto the other flowers, which is the process of pollination.

https://vavai.com/2014/02/

Some of the many fruits and vegetables that bees help pollinate are pears, apples, mangos, watermelons, strawberries, green beans, celery, onions, peas, and tomatoes, they also help pollinate coffee! But food is not all that bees pollinate. They also pollinate cotton, and alfalfa, which the cotton we use for clothing and the alfalfa we use to feed our dairy cows. Did you know that almonds are actually 100% dependent on bee pollination and commercial beekeepers will travel with their bees to California to help pollinate the almonds?

http://treefruit.wsu.edu/orchard-management/pollination/honey-bees/    

As you can see there are many different things that bees help pollinate for us. If you really think about it, the next time you are eating a meal, figuratively every third bite you take would be pollinated by bees. Bees are very vital to the human diet and to the environment.