Beekeeping and Bees - Extra
Photo Credit: Public Domain
When I was in my most recent beekeeping class, one of the attendees mentioned a documentary she had see on bees titled Hive Alive on Netflix. I looked it up and saw it was a 2-part British television special. The episodes feature hosts Chris Packham and Martha Kearney along with other very knowledgeable people.
I took the opportunity to view the first episode and it was so well done. They presented a lot of good information in an accessible way and it made it even better when one of the hosts, Martha, explained that she had experience with bees and had had a hive.
The purpose of the mini-series was to expose as they said, the secret life of the bees. The filming took place in a beautiful garden setting in Somerset, England during the peak of summer. The crew utilized high speed cameras, listening devises, thermo cameras, and an observation hive to get some absolutely amazing footage both outside and inside the hives.
The information presented was well organized and visually interesting. Here is some of the information they covered.
For bees, it is all about gathering nectar and pollen to ensure the hive survives the winter, since bees winter as a colony. This is a good thing because come spring, hive is up and running where bugs like wasps all die except for the fertilized queen and when spring comes a new colony has to be established which takes time.
Some stats they mentioned were fascinating. The size of a hive is mind-blowing, 20,000 bees in mid-summer and peaking at 50,000 bees later in the season. For every 5 kilos of honey the bees make, 4 kilos are needed to maintain the hive. Bees have to fly 50,000 miles to make one pound of honey.
One of the cool experiments they showed was affixing a radio frequency transponder to a bee and tracking their path with military radar. It showed the bee mapping out the area around the hive. They said that foraging bees do an orientation flight to make a navigational map using landmarks and sun positions. It wouldn’t do the hive any good if the bees couldn’t find their way back to the hive. Bees can travel really far to get food, they were saying a confirmed 7 miles.
One of the things that did surprise me was the section where they talked about worker bees. I did not realize that workers bee started out working inside the hive but after a few weeks experience a hormone shift and some genes switch on and they become foragers for the rest of their lifespan. The actual brain structure changes to handle navigation. So cool.
The last experiment was checking out if bees and flowers communicate. Why does a bee go to one flower and ignore the next? It has to do with electric fields. Fascinating information.
I really enjoyed this first segment and would encourage anyone who is interested in bees (and has access to Netflix) to check out Hive Alive. I will definitely watch the second segment and let you know how it went.
If you haven't read my previous posts on my beekeeping adventures, here are the links:
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@altportal/a-bee-story-beekeeping-session-one
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@altportal/a-bee-story-beekeeping-session-two
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@altportal/a-bee-story-beekeeping-session-three-part-one
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@altportal/a-bee-story-beekeeping-session-three-part-two
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This is one of the things on my to do list. I love honey, love how bees pollenate other plants and love that I’m contributing to saving the bee population for the sake of mankind. It’s win win win on all levels!
Hello my friend @altportal how are you ?, good day. Whenever you publish something about beekeeping I am very excited because I learn more about the subject. This specific publication is very complete and unformative, since you explain with every detail the work process of the bees and how they work to create the exquisite honey. Wow, it surprises me that there are 20,000 bees in the middle of summer and reaching a maximum of 50,000 bees later in the season, it is something impressive, as you tell us that for 5 kilos of honey, 4 kilos are needed to maintain the hive, It's something I seriously did not know. All these experiments with bees are very interesting, once I saw one on television where they had a large queen bee in a box, and in another box hundreds of normal bees, and everything to pair the queen with the other male bees. It was very interesting that, like in a survival program, the man wanted to grab a piece of bee hive to eat the honey they had already made, so he explained how we should handle a bee hive without the special suit, but the end a bee pecked at his forehead and it got very choked. To be honest I liked the publication my friend, really that with you little by little I learn more about the world of bees and that I thank you, I hope to enjoy your next post about beekeeping and your experience in the next class Of the same. I send you many greetings, I hope you have an excellent weekend. Blessings
That's interesting. Thanks for stopping by. Keep writing!!
Of course, if my friend @altportal, I will continue writing in your publications and will continue supporting you until God allows me to be in steemit. Thank you very much for your support. When you like you are welcome in my blog. Goodnight.
I think it's a complete pity that I do not have Netflix but I would like to see this documentary, but I have your reports that I like because they are very complete and I learn a lot about bees, I did not imagine that they would work that way I think they do a good job As a team today I learned a little more about them, it seemed interesting to me that experiment they did to see their route
Hello friend how are you preparing for this weekend, I am fascinated with this publication would be interesting to see this series I do not have Netflix but through you I am more interested in this wonderful world of these small animals that create something as exquisite as honey, they have an arduous job, it is incredible how they could place a military radar so small to follow a very impressive bee
This is very informational and we have been getting ready to do bees on our homestead to help pollinate our plants and crops. I guess harvesting the honey toward the end of the season would be a really bad idea then for the bees? I do live in FL so even in the winter here we have nice weather and flowering on certain plants. Maybe that is why people that harvest the honey at the end of season always provide a feeder with sugar water in it for the bees. Thanks for the information.
So does it mean that bees and flowers have some communication? this is interesting who would think that bees do so much work to maintain their hive and all the process that this requires to make honey @altportal
That's what I got out of it.
You made a very beautiful photo. I also know that bees have a queen. She controls the entire hive. And also there are drones (male bees that perform only a male function), who are friends with the queen.
Interesting stand. I did not know a lot about bees. And the picture was great. Good luck.
you can see the bee directly in the nest, if I do not dare to pass it, for fear of being stung by a bee that can cause swelling of my whole body