Bee Keepers in Kent?
Buzz is the sound of summer
You have stumbled across a bee hive in your loft, and you would like it gone, But you don’t want to kill the bees in the process. They are your friends and provide tasty honey for you to eat.
That’s when it’s time to call the bee keepers.
First of all, inspect your house and find out where the hive is. Then, rather than clean out the nest or knock it down, phone the Kent Bee Keepers Association. They have branches throughout the whole of Kent.
History of the honey bee
Honey bees do more for us than make honey. They are social insects that humankind has had a relationship with for thousands of years. Egyptian and ancient Greeks kept bees, as they knew how beneficial they were to the economy and agriculture.
The honey bee (why beneficial?)
Darting from flower to flower, carrying pollen from one place to another, the honey bee ensures the production of seeds. Without the honey bee we would have no apples, pumpkins or almonds, to mention just a few.
How do they produce honey?
They collect nectar from flowers, store it in their second stomach, and then take it back to the bee hive. The workers will extract and digest it for a half hour in order to break up the complex sugars. It then becomes raw honey and is spread onto the honeycomb that has already been prepared by the queen. At this point the bees dry the honey using their wings as a fan. Once it is dry the combs are sealed with more wax, to preserve it.
What is nectar?
It is a sugar based liquid produced in plants.
The queen
She sets up her colony and reproduces. The queen can live for 3 to 5 years.
Drones
Their sole existence is for fertilization. They do not forage for nectar or pollen. After mating they immediately die. They do not have stingers.
Workers
The female worker bees clean, feed the larvae, and make the honeycomb from their secreted wax
How long do they live?
Workers live for 6 to 7 weeks and drones can live up to 4 months. This all depends on what time of year they are born. The queen can live up to 5 years of age.
What is colony collapse disorder?
It is the disappearance of the honey bee, which has rapidly escalated in the last 10 years, leading to more than 10 million beehives being wiped out throughout the world.
Honey bee facts
- One colony produces tens of thousands of eggs.
- Most worker bees are female.
- Only the queen can lay eggs.
- The large queen bee lays thousands of eggs each day.
- If one bee is attacked or feels threatened it will excrete pheromones to warn the rest of the hive.
- One hive can produce up to 80,000 bees in the summer.
- Honey bees do not always die after they have stung someone.
- The queen can lay one egg every 20 seconds.
- If a queen bee is not fruitful in producing eggs, the hive will replace her.
Kent Bee Keepers Association has branches in Ashford, Bromley, Canterbury, Dartford, Graves End, Orpington, and many more throughout South East England.
click the link to find a local bee keeper in Kent
