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6 Basics About Honey Bees Beekeeping

Expert Author Amaechi Ekufu

Scientifically speaking, out of the 20,000 various species of bees, only 7 or so are honey bees. Honey beekeeping requires that one stays abreast with all the details about beekeeping. There are 6 basics about honey bees beekeeping that are usually the most important in the practice.

1. Not all bee species are able to produce honey

As already mentioned, there could be well over 20,000 species of bees but only 7 or so species are able to actually produce honey. When practicing honey beekeeping it is important to know that the honey bees are probably the single members of the Apini tribe of bees and all of them are among the Apis genus.

2. The Honey Bee beekeeping Colony

A typical bee colony consist of the Queen Bee which is more like the mother of all the bees, the drone bees whose role is to fertilise the queen and the worker bees that act as the line of defense and protection for the entire bee colony.

3. Pollination

In beekeeping, the lifecycle of the bees is quite important to note because it defines a lot. During this lifecycle, pollination occurs and the particular species of bees that produces honey is a frequent visitor of floral environments. They pollinate very many plants and in the process of pollination they do this as they try to collect the pollen.

4. Honey

The honey produced in is formed as a result of a combination of factors. It is formed after the nectar and sweet deposits from the various trees and plants have been collected, chemically altered and eventually stored in by the honey bees within the honey comb. It acts as some kind of food source for the entire colony.

5. Defense Mechanism

Honey beekeeping can be a very scary activity for many people simply because of the defense mechanism that the bees have in place. All honey bees usually find habitat in a colony that has worker bees. It is these worker bees that sting any foreign intruders as a means of defending the colony. The bees that have been notified of the attack almost immediately trigger off an attack from other bees by releasing Pheromone, a chemical that ignites the attack of the other bees.

6. Means of Communication

In beekeeping, it should be noted that the honey bees do communicate. However, they do so in a number of ways including through odour and chemicals. Apart from that, they also use particular behaviour to relay certain messages to fellow bees to join the attack or to any other intruder to try and warn or scare them off.

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