New Reasons for Why I Love Keeping Bees

Having walked around for two days last week with a right hand that looked like a surgical glove that you blow up and give to your kids as a five-fingered balloon, I was reminded in some of my bee-related reading why it is so quintessentially "cool" to keep bees. This is a quote from Professor Tom D. Seeley, author of the books "The Wisdom of the Hive: The Social Physiology of Honey Bee Colonies" and "Honeybee Democracy":


The study of the honey bee colony, especially its food collection, has yielded what is probably the best-understood example of cooperative group functioning outside the realm of human society.

Wow! This means that we understand how honey bees cooperate better than any other social organism beside ourselves! Pretty nifty. The social intelligence of these small creatures is just fascinating to learn about, and then to be able to see parts of it in your own backyard, is truly like living your own episode off of Discovery channel. Did you know that if there are several floral sources available, that honey bees will forage on the floral source that has the greatest quantity of nectar and the highest sugar concentration in the nectar available? Here's an awesome quote from the book ABC & XYZ of Bee Culture:

It has been said that humans differ from other animals because we can communicate with one another. However, we observe that the honey bee dance can convey information about direction, distance, quality, and the type of food to be found even a mile or more from the hive. Without the use of a compass and a machine to measure distance, we might find it difficult to convey such information to another human ourselves. Obviously the honey bee dance language has certain deficiencies, such as the inability to convey information about color, shape, and upward or downward direction. Still, it is probably correct to state that only human language is superior to that of a honey bee.


Double wow! After reading that I feel like sitting back, folding my arms contentedly and nodding my head, "Yeah, I keep 20,000 to 60,000  of the life-forms whose language skills are only inferior to that of humans in my backyard. Yeah, they pollinate my garden, and yes, they also make me honey." Now you may say, "But what about gorillas and chimps that can learn sign language. True, but they've been taught by humans. I haven't heard of or seen chimps or gorillas use sign language in nature.

And finally, another reason, it's incredibly fulfilling to be able to explain the coolness of bees to those who haven't yet had this revealed to them. In fact, this last inspection, I had a friend come over who wanted to help out with the inspection and see the bees more up close. We saw several drones (they are much larger and fairly easy to spot). We saw swarm cells (queen cells on the bottom of the frames). This is bad news. I don't have any empty drawn comb in order to make more room in the brood area. I did, however, add a honey super. Although, the bees will have to draw out the wax. My hope is that perhaps this will make more room for brood by having more room for nectar. We also saw the queen, eggs, uncapped larvae, capped brood cells, capped honey, and pollen/bee bread. When it was over, my friend thanked me for giving him the opportunity to participate in opening up and seeing the innards of a honey bee colony. I mentioned that he could now identify a drone from a worker (which he did during the inspection, without my help-- after seeing a drone). He said something along the lines of, "Yeah, I bet most people have never even seen a drone before, let alone know how to tell the difference between a worker and a drone." So, if you are a reader who happens to know me and happens to be in the Cleveland area, feel free to come out and take part in an inspection. You'll definitely leave it with a greater fascination and appreciation for honey bees. Funny, just had a hymn in my head, "In Our Lovely Deseret"... roughly translated means "In Our Lovely Honey Bees." Yeah, that's where I like to bee once a week. Enjoy the pics of being in the lovely deseret!

My friend's son. Clearly no fear of bees. My daughter is this same way. The goal here is to keep them with just enough fear that they don't get stung and then develop a real "fear" of bees. However, I generally try to keep the kids a bit further away, esp. when we're opening the hive (unless of course they have a veil, then-- no problem).

A picture of the queen. Looks like her head is down in a cell or covered by bees, but the marking on her thorax as well as her pretty orange abdomen can be seen clearly here.

Another queen picture.

My friend holding his first frame of bees. Looks like a beautiful frame of capped brood, but can't tell from this distance.

Decently crowded, populated hive in this picture, at least in the central area of the hive. Hopefully, they won't swarm. A swarm would essentially halve the population in the hive and make it more difficult to build up the honey stores necessary to survive the winter.

I love this picture. You can see the nectar droplects on the pollen baskets on the hind legs of the bee. Look how hairy the bees are as well, that is also to allow them to collect pollen.

My beautiful kids and I near Dad's Hive, perfect picture for father's day!

Makes me wonder why my father doesn't seem to have as many bee issues with his hive. Perhaps because he doesn't know enough yet to notice when he has them? Or perhaps because he stays so busy that he isn't able to inspect his bees as often? Or perhaps, the bees just knew that with the amount of reading about bees that I've been doing, that they've got to make it "interesting" for me? What do you think?