Beekeeping involves providing shelter suitable for summer and winter for honey bees with flowering plants and water source in the vicinity so bees can collect nectar, pollen, resin and water, checking on domesticated bee hives to make sure there are no harmful parasites and pathogens that usually spread in bee yards as beehives are in close proximity, and harvest honey, honeycomb, beeswax, propolis, ambrosia and royal jelly once or twice a year.
Beekeeper duties are highly rewarding, all of the real work is done by the bees.
There are several glands in a bee’s body that process and produce different honey bee products. Some of these glands are active at different stages of a bee’s life.
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Forager worker bees collect nectar in their honey stomach where enzymes and proteins are added to break down complex sugars into simple sugars.
The nectar mixture is passed on to receiver worker bees who process the partially digested nectar further in a continuous series assembly of bee transfers until the refined liquid is ready to be stored.
The newly stored liquid is honey with a high water content, prone to fermentation. Other worker bees will now fan their wings and helped by the heat generated by the thermoregulating bees in the hive, water is evaporated from the honey before the cell of the now ripened honey is capped.
Honey is shelf stable for years at any temperature without the need of refrigeration. -
Honey is consumed for energy by bees to make beeswax to build the honeycomb.
Female worker bees, and male drone bees consume honey for carbohydrates.
Honey is fed to young female worker bee larvae and young male drone bee larvae in addition to pollen ambrosia. -
Pollen is foraged for by forager bees and made into bee bread ambrosia by worker bees inside the hive by adding salivary secretions and nectar to ferment the pollen which is packed into cells of the comb. Pollen is the source of protein for the beehive.
Bee bread is fed to worker and drone bee larvae in addition to honey and eaten by bees working inside the beehive only. -
Water is collected by forager bees to regulate the temperature of the beehive, for bodily functions, to make and dilute honey for young ones and to secrete royal jelly.
Royal jelly is fed to all bee larvae for three days. Worker bees and drones are then switched to a diet of honey and pollen. Queen bee larvae and adult queens eat only royal jelly during their whole life. Royal jelly is produced and fed to the queen bee by worker bees. - Foraging worker bees collect plant resin that worker bees inside the hive mix with beeswax and saliva to make bee glue used to seal the beehive for stability reinforcement, thermal insulation and protection.
Other bee glands produce pheromones, chemical substances released by a bee into the hive or the environment to elicit responses in recipient bees as a means of communication.
Honey bee pheromones may be releaser pheromones that trigger immediate, temporary changes in the recipient’s behaviour or primer pheromones which have a long term effect on the physiology of the receiving bee. Some pheromones can act as both a releaser and a primer pheromone.
Pheromones may be a single chemical compound or complex mixtures of numerous chemicals of varying percentages.
Different chemical messages are secreted by worker bees, the queen bee and male bee drones.
Pheromones are produced as volatile or non volatile chemical secretions, transmitted by vapour travelling freely in air, bees fanning their wings vigorously or direct contact.
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The bee alarm pheromone released be the Koschevnikov gland near the sting shaft, consisting of 40 chemical compounds with low molecular weights and highly volatile, is released when a bee stings an animal. This pheromone attracts other bees to the location and cause them to behave defensively by stinging and charging after the predator.
Different bee species pursue perceived threats to different distances, deploy in greater numbers for defence, guard the hive more aggressively with bigger numbers of guard bees and a larger alarm zone outside the beehive and react to disturbances with varying speeds.
This alarm pheromone is also released when a bee is hurt or crushed when the beekeeper opens the hive and is perceived by humans to smell like bananas. The smoke from a bee smoke is used to mask this pheromone. -
A second alarm pheromone is a single highly volatile anaesthetic and repelling substance released to paralyze intruders which worker bees then proceed to remove from the hive.
Foraging bees and robber bees are also deterred and avoid locations containing this pheromone. - The brood recognition pheromone is present in a colony with developing larvae and pupae. The pheromone inhibits ovarian development in worker bees to prevent theses female bees from bearing offspring. This pheromone is emitted by the larvae and pupae to help nurse bees distinguish young female worker bees and male drone bees maturing in their cells. The components of the brood pheromone chemical blend varies with the age of the growing bee young.
- The male bee drone mandibular pheromone attracts other drones to suitable mating congregation areas to mate with virgin queens in flight.
- Dufour’s gland pheromone is an alkaline complex secretion of up to 24 chemicals deposited on bee eggs as they are laid. This pheromone allow worker bees to distinguish between eggs laid by the queen bee in a queenright colony with a healthy queen and those laid by egg laying worker bees in a queenless colony.
- The egg marking pheromone similarly helps nurse bees distinguish between eggs laid by the queen bee and the rare occurrence of eggs laid by a reproductive worker bee in the beehive.
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The footprint pheromone is left by bees when they walk, intended to be perceived by other bees for a sense of direction.
In the queen bee, this pheromone is an oily secretion of the queen’s nasal glands deposited on the comb as she walks across. The essence is to inhibit queen cell construction by worker bees to host a new queen larva thereby preventing swarming. The production of this pheromone diminishes as the queen ages signalling the approaching need for a new queen. -
Worker bees emit the Nasonov pheromone to orient forager bees returning back to the colony. Forager bees detect this pheromone to find the entrance of their beehive and release the same chemicals on flowers they find to locate the nectar source when they leave the nest to collect more food and to recruit more forager bees and direct them to head towards the marked resource. Forager bees release unique blends of the pheromone chemical complex to distinguish between each of the several forage plants they find.
This is a pheromone bees spread out by vigorously fanning their wings.
It can take up to 48 hours for the honey bee colony to re establish the scent equilibrium meant for orientation after the beekeeper disturbs the balance of smells within the hive by lifting the frames. -
The queen mandibular pheromone is made up of several chemical components produced in varying amounts throughout her life. Newly emerged queens produce very little quantities of the chemicals. When mature, the virgin queen produces more of the pheromone to attract male bee drones over long distances for mating. An egg laying gyne queen emits the pheromone in abundance, critical to worker bee recognition of the presence of a queen bee in the hive so they can feed and groom her. The pheromone elicits behavioural reactions in the female worker bees so they do not rear new queens in the brood comb and induces the physiological inhibition of ovarian development in worker bees.
This pheromone is spread by contact to all the bees of the colony and promotes stability within the hive and of a swarm due to the calming sense of belonging. -
Queen bee retinue pheromones act to attract and maintain the circle of worker bees around their queen.
More pheromones secreted by queens, worker bees and drones exist.
Scientists have identified the chemical components of many of the pheromones and have derived synthetic pheromones to help beekeepers influence bees within their colony veered towards commercial success.
Beekeepers have observed the circumstances under which particular pheromones exist and resulting reactions. Apiculturists now use the knowledge to persuade bees to take certain desired actions in the bee yard like
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When the queen ages, dies or is not in the hive anymore, her pheromones fade and cannot be detected by worker bees anymore. Within the hour, the worker bees then proceed to select eggs aged less than three days, dramatically enlarge the cells to form emergency queen larva cells and feed the developing queen larva with a great deal of royal jelly secreted from the hypopharyngeal gland of young nurse bees to raise a new queen to ensure the survival of the colony.
Because of the outcome resulting from the absence of this particular pheromone, beekeepers are able to split a colony to increase their apiary colonies. Apiculturists remove several brood combs containing eggs and larvae less than three days old, covered by young nurse bees to care, feed and keep the young brood war. These brood combs are placed into a nucleus hive, the bee nuc, with more honeycomb containing honey and pollen. As soon as the worker bees realize they do not have a queen they start rearing a new queen larva from the eggs and larvae in the brood comb cells to raise another queen to keep the colony going. - Also, as a virgin queen bee emits little queen pheromone a few hours after emergence it contributes to her being easily accepted in a queen less hive when the beekeeper wants to requeen beehives in the apiary.
Besides sensory communication, bees impart in cognitive cues to communicate.
- The waggle dance is performed by successful forager bees to share information about the direction and distance to flower patches and blooming trees yielding pollen and nectar, water sources or new nest sites scouted by worker bees.
- The round dance and the waggle dance are behaviours part of a continuous transition performed away from the beehive as the distance between the hive and the resource changes. The round dance is performed until the resource is about 10 metres away from the hive. As the distance increases to 20 to 30 metres, the round dance is transformed into variations of transitional dances. Finally when the resource is at greater distances of 40 metres away from the hive honey bees perform the waggle dance.
- The tremble dance shows how bees express regulation mechanisms to control group behaviours in a colony. The tremble dance is performed by forager honey bees when a long delay in nectar unloading or a shortage of receiver bees is perceived. The tremble dance indicates a need to switch worker bee allocation from foragers to receivers.
Coming next is the workings of developed synthetic pheromones and how you can use them to increase the success of your apiculture operation.
Alia B. M.
Biologist
evergreenbotany.com
evergreenbotanyglobal@gmail.com